During the past few days I’ve been practicing my BIF handheld technique with mallards at Forty Mile Creek in Grimsby. The spring birding season is fast approaching, so getting in some practice sessions in advance is absolutely critical.
Category Archives: Bird Detection AI
BIF Shooting Style Adjustment
I went out today to experiment with a BIF shooting style adjustment so I could evaluate the feasibility of using a heavier lens for my bird photography. Like a number of other Olympus/OM System camera equipment users the new M.Zuiko 150-600mm f/5-6.3 IS super zoom has piqued my interest.
Skills Tune-Up
I can’t speak for other photographers, but I’ve found that a periodic skills tune-up can be beneficial to support a wide range of photographic competencies. This article shares a number of recent test/practice photographs. I would normally show finished images in my articles, including any cropping that needed to be done.
All of the photographs in this posting were processed in post from RAW files. The images are shown without any cropping as I felt it may be more beneficial for readers to see the full frame captures of these practice images.
Auto Focus Considerations
This article discusses some basic auto focus considerations and was prompted by a few emails that I recently received from readers. Some of these emails had questions that were specific to the OM-1. Since I have never used this camera, and have no plans to do any kind of review on it, I’m unable to comment specifically on that model.
Happenstance
Happenstance can be defined as a chance situation. Or something that occurred because of particular circumstances, although it was not planned. As photographers we are often beneficiaries of happenstance. This is regularly the case with bird photography.
Vultures In-Flight With PRO 40-150
This article features some images of vultures in-flight captured handheld with the M.Zuiko PRO 40-150 mm f/2.8 zoom and MC-20 teleconverter.
Barn Swallows
This article features a selection of handheld photographs of Barn Swallow… many of which are in flight. The images were captured at Hendrie Valley. In my local area I typically have many more opportunities to capture images of Tree Swallows as compared to Barn Swallows. This is mainly due to an abundance of nesting boxes that are frequented by Tree Swallows.
Kingbird Harassing Raptor
This short article features a selection of six consecutive images of a kingbird harassing a raptor in mid-air. An experienced associate has advised that the raptor is an immature Cooper’s Hawk and the aggressor is an Eastern Kingbird (thanks Glen). All photographs were captured handheld with an E-M1X using Pro Capture L in combination with Bird Recognition AI Subject Tracking.
Prepared For Opportunities
Being prepared for opportunities is one of the fundamental factors when it comes to being successful with bird-in-flight photography. This takes some planning, and is also directly impacted by how we set up our camera gear.
Best BIF Settings
This article discusses best BIF (bird-in-flight) settings, and shares a selection of recently captured photographs of purple martins in free flight. All of the featured images were captured handheld at Biggar Lagoons Wetlands in Grimsby Ontario a few days ago during a quick 1.5 hour visit. It was a very productive outing that created over 100 useable images in a very compressed time frame.