The Bluebird project continues

[Colin Knight]

One more night shift and then I'll be able to spend plenty of time with these guys! Awhile ago I posted an image of a pair of bluebirds constructing a nest in my paperbox below my mailbox. The "do not disturb" sign worked- the bluebirds remain unmolested and have a few babies which they are busy feeding. The camera is actually set up on the curb, with the tripod legs right at the edge of the pavement. It's extremely low to the ground, to try to get a window of greenery between the neighborhood houses. It makes a perfect background.

Everything is a compromise between DOF, noise, and shutter speed. I guess this is always true, but it seems so much more limiting here. I'm having difficulty determining if the softness is due to my wrong estimations when manually prefocusing on the assumed flight path, or if the softness is due to a slow shutter speed. I believe that the issue is related more to shutter speed, so I'm increasing the ISO to try to at least get a tack sharp eye. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm hopeful. The stars have to line up for this to happen. When I have more time, I'll consider setting up a temporary perch for the birds to land on, then they can hop into the paperbox.

This image was cropped to 73% of the frame. Oh, and these little guys laugh at 8 fps. It's not even close to being fast enough. You can see that I was slightly back focused here. What could have been.....

Canon 7D, 500mm, 1/3200 sec, f/4, ISO 1000, manual exposure, manually prefocused.

[Peter Hawrylyshyn]

colin
the flight path of the bird and the narrow DOF of a 500mm at f4 is working against you

your idea of setting up a nearby perch is a good one. you'll probably have better luck if the bird is flying and landing onto the perch directly facing you, such that the wings are in a plane parallel to the camera sensor

if you had a Mk2N you could preset the AF point and use "trap focus" feature - but this is no longer offered on the newer Canon cameras. Multi flash setups are your other option

good luck

[Colin Knight]

Thanks for the comments and advice Peter. Hopefully there will be more to come!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Colin, knowing how fast a Bluebird flies grabbing a shot like this isn't easy. I realize you are looking at the branches as a destination but with the small amount shown isn't communicating that. Image might be stronger without the branches showing and adding room on the right.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the spread of wings and pose, overall a bit bright on my screen. SS is enough but focus seems to be off, for shots like this it is critical that head and eye be in sharp focus. Hope you can catch one soon!

[Colin Knight]

Thank you Arash and Dave for your comments. It's how I get better! And there's plenty of room for improvement. :)

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Colin,

I love Blue Birds, note the catchlight is blurred (large). This is a sign of motion blur, easy to do with flying birds. Keep working on panning techniques and keep shutter high - TFS.

[Colin Knight]

Thanks Jeff. I set up a perch today with some success. I'm looking forward to tomorrow! I may have something worth posting on the Avian forum, if so I'll link it here as a "thanks" for all the suggestions and to show some progress.