Pelican BIF

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi All,
I was quiet amused to check on my monitor after the shoot that the bird had just pooped! You can see the droppings on the lower right side of the frame! Am practicing BIF, so the image may not be up to the mark. C & C welcome.

Camera	Canon EOS 7D
Exposure	0.001 sec (1/1600)
Aperture	f/5.6
Focal Length	400 mm
ISO Speed	125
Exposure Bias	0 EV

Kaziranga0022 by docsanjeev, on Flickr

[Joel Eade]

Hi Sanjeev,

Your camera settings look about right for BIF, I am assuming you were in manual mode. Manual is recommended so you can expose correctly for the bird and variations in the BG won't cause the camera to change exposure as the bird passes by.

The pose you captured is pretty good and it is sharp enough but it looks like the bird just passed your position by a little, try to pre-focus where you expect the bird to come from and attempt to get the shot as the bird approaches or is parallell to you.

In this case you could also benefit from getting closer (if possible) because the subject is a little too small in the frame, how much did you crop this one?

You have a good handle on the basics...keep on shootin'

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Sanjeev,

Good advice from Joel, he hit many of the main points. BIF is all about practice getting exposure correct and trying to get the sun and wind behind you if possible. Knowing the subject is important too for example ducks tend to take off into the wind. The wing position is flat some call it the pancake position and many think it is not the strongest and does not show the power and beauty of flight.

The picture has hot pixels too consider a faster shutter going forward. Remember when shooting whites always expose for the highlights in this case the subject is one big bright highlight. ISO is too low, you have heard us talk about doubling the ISO adds a stop of light in this case. An ISO speed of 375 would have supported a shutter speed around 1/4000. Try 400 as a baseline and go from there. Checking the histogram is critical here, you should have seen clipping on the right and made adjustments. You are on the right track my friend just keep practicing and posting.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thanks Joel and Jeff. The points you have made really make sense & I shall try to keep the base ISO for BIF as 400 and try to expose to the right. I guess I should turn off the IS as well. In this case it was ON. I was shooting in the Tv mode and kept the SS to 1/1600. I will give manual exposure a try the next time. It's about a 30 % crop of the FF.
Sanjeev

[John Chardine]

Hi Sanjeev- Birds in flight are demanding subjects and practise makes you better and better. Agree with Jeff for sure on the ISO setting. The 7D can handle 400 and that would have given you the latitude to use a higher shutter speed or a smaller aperture, thus increasing depth of field.

The poop makes the image (I collect pooping birds and am a member of the official avian "pooparazzi"!).

Head angle is important even for flying birds so try to have them coming towards you (not necessarily directly), rather than away. If the bird is flying by parallel to the sensor, you often get a flat HA but with luck, the bird sometimes turns a little towards you.