Burrowing Owl and a Lesson in Bumping Focus for BIF

[Doug Brown]

As I said in my last Burrowing Owl post, these are tough BIF subjects. What you see here is probably my favorite Burrowing Owl flight shot that I've ever taken. It looks great if I do say so myself! But it didn't start out looking so good. In the next few posts I'm going to show you the sequence of frames that I got leading up to this one, and we'll talk about an important concept in BIF photography known as bumping focus. What follows are downsized versions of the full frames that I captured.

Canon 1Dx, 600 mm + 1.4x, f/5.6, 1/4000, ISO 800, manual exposure, hand held

[Doug Brown]

Here's the first image in the sequence. The owl is sitting on a fire hydrant and I've got it in sharp focus.

[Doug Brown]

One of the things that makes Burrowing Owls tough flight subjects is that they do a great job of concealing the fact that they're about to take off. When this one flies, I immediately lose focus to the BG.

[Doug Brown]

The important thing to remember is that hope is not lost. Even though I've totally lost focus, I'm trying to keep the Burrowing Owl smudge in the center of the frame.

[Doug Brown]

Here's the next frame in the sequence. Still trying to keep the bird in the center of the frame. And I'm bumping my focus button as I'm tracking. This is a concept that Jim Neiger invented a number of years ago. What bumping focus means is that you center the bird in the frame and acquire focus. Then you release the AF button and track the bird through the viewfinder for a couple of seconds before fine-tuning your focus when the bird is in the center of the frame again. Repeat this process until the bird is in your shooting zone, and then press and hold the AF button as you squeeze off your burst of frames.

[Doug Brown]

You'll notice that I haven't given up on this flight sequence because I've got a great subject, a gorgeous BG, some nice light, and I'm able to do an OK job of tracking the bird. You're probably asking yourself how focus bumping is relevant here since I more or less started with an OOF subject. Focus bumping is like an AF reset; when you lose focus on your subject, repeatedly press and release your AF button as you continue to track the bird and hopefully you will reacquire focus at some point in the sequence. And this is the frame where the camera reacquires focus on the bird.

[Doug Brown]

Now that I've acquired focus I keep pressing down on the AF button and take my shots.

[Doug Brown]

And then comes the keeper frame from the series.

[Doug Brown]

The idea behind bumping focus is simple. The less time you spend autofocusing, the less of a chance you have of your focus getting pulled off of your subject and onto your BG. Press the AF button only when you have the bird centered in the frame. Then track the bird and fine-tune AF periodically until you're ready to take your shots. Do not 'ride' the AF button, as tracking can be challenging; if you continuously AF as you track, your odds of losing focus to the BG go up significantly. This is especially true when photographing BIF on a varied BG.

In this sequence I lost focus right out the starting gate. But I used the principal of bumping focus to reacquire AF and get the shots. I used AF case 2 for these frames.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

What a gorgeous background and perfect down wing position and body angle in the frame.
That's an awesome shot Doug and a great lesson in this simple, yet effective, flight photography technique. TFS
Cheers

PS good to see that even you clip wings…. second last frame. I got some of my best images of a swamp harrier in flight on Sunday and one of the good frames has the top 1/3 of the darned wing clipped. But I have a similarly position wing as in your shot with more of a body towards the camera angle that was just a great shot.

[Karl Egressy]

Excellent down wing flight position, beautiful image, Doug.
I use back focusing and bump with the thumb.
Is it how you do it or use the forefinger and shutter release button only?

[Doug Brown]

Excellent down wing flight position, beautiful image, Doug.
I use back focusing and bump with the thumb.
Is it how you do it or use the forefinger and shutter release button only?

Hey Karl. I use back middle button focus and bump with my thumb. Glad you like the image!

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Doug, great read, and an even greater flight pose that you nailed. I havent mastered the back button focus, ( ok, havent really put it to practise ) but do experience OOF shots against foliage BG's as above. Yep, I still hopefully come away with some sharp images in a sequence too.

[Don Nelson]

Excellent writeup, Doug. Good to see that the pros miss focus and try to hold it on the center spot yet don't succeed. Until you posted this, I thought I just wasn't doing it right as I expected the pros just to keep it centered and fully focused with minor adjusting bumps. Thanks for the reassurance!

Excellent view in first frame. Outstanding actually...

[Joe Subolefsky]

Doug that is just a sweet killer shot!

"The less time you spend autofocusing, the less of a chance you have of your focus getting pulled off of your subject and onto your BG. Press the AF button only when you have the bird centered in the frame." I think that you nailed the key of this concept right there. Great thread.

When I first started I would often acquire focus on an out of range bird way too early and attempt to hold focus all the way in and really struggled. I also found our eye will naturally try to center the subject in the viewfinder if we just let it happen instead of trying too hard to force it to center.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent image and write up Doug! this is a tough subject and takes a lot of skill to get one frame like this

[adrian dancy]

Well nailed Doug. My personal preference would be for just a tad more space but certainly no big deal.

[Ramon Reyes]

Thank you Dan, I've learn something new today and will definitely use it next time.

Btw, amazing flight shot, killer background.

Ramon

[David Salem]

Nice write up Doug. Gosh knows how many times a beautifully lit OOF blob flew past me and I had the center point right on the blob bumping focus the whole way as it flew by. In varied backgrounds it can be hard for the camera to pick the Owl amongst the similar colored BG.
This is the part of BIF photography that I find pretty frustrating. Not only do you have to be good enough to actually track the subject with a big heavy lens, and keep it in the center, but even if you get that figured out, the camera misses focus more times than not in my experience. That is in a varied BG and with a earth tone subject. Now in a blue sky, it's another story.
All that being said, this is one of the best burrowing owl flight shots I have ever seen. Everything looks awesome!! I remember you sending me the shot from the back LCD of your camera the day you got it. I would love to have this in my files.

[Bob Serling]

It's hard to say which is better, the shot or your tutorial. So let me just say that both are exceptional and this has helped me a great deal in getting a better understanding of bumping focus correctly. GREAT write up.

[Doug Brown]

Thanks for the comments. I'm glad you found this thread helpful.