Sometimes we just happen to be at the right place at the right time to capture some images. That was certainly the case on Wednesday this week when I visited the Dufferin Islands at Niagara Falls Ontario and managed to capture a large, white goose beating its wings. Luckily I had my Nikon 1 V2 set for AF-C at 15 fps with subject tracking. So, here is a series of images of a goose beating its wings at 15 fps.

NOTE: click on images to enlarge

I shot hand-held and kept my AF-C subject tracking point on the goose as best I could as it was walking while beating its wings.

The goose was in shade under some large trees. This helped in terms of avoiding clipping too many highlights, but my ISO levels were quite high – a trade-off as in most things photographic.

My Nikon 1 CX 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 performed well and I was pretty happy with the run of images the AF-C captured.

If you’re like me, you sometimes just get a feeling that a particular bird is about to do something rather than just stand there and as a result you focus your camera on it.

Within a couple of seconds of focusing on this particular goose it began to beat its wings furiously, giving me a great opportunity to capture some images.

Within a minute the opportunity was gone, but not before I had captured almost 50 images of the action.

The AF-C on my Nikon 1 with the CX 70-300 lens held focus for the vast majority of images. I did lose a few towards the end of the AF-C run that were not in good focus. I also had three unusable frames part way through the run as I inadvertently cut off the head of the goose with my framing.

A lot of folks dismiss the Nikon 1 system out-of-hand because of its small 1″ sensor.

That is a real shame as the Nikon 1 system has some great capabilities as these images demonstrate.

All of the images that you’ve seen thus far are sequential from the same AF-C run. This is the point that I mis-framed three shots. We’ll now pick up the AF-C run with 8 more sequential images towards the end of my AF-C run.

Many bird enthusiasts will find the Nikon 1 system ideal for their needs. The bodies are small and light and the Nikon 1 CX 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 is an outstanding lens to use for bird photography – both for static and birds-in-flight. I prefer using cameras with a viewfinder so I have three Nikon 1 V2’s that I use for my client work (mainly safety and training videos) as well as for my personal needs.

The Nikon 1 V2 can shoot at 15 fps with full AF-C. Newer bodies like the Nikon 1 V3 and J5 (there’s no viewfinder with this model) can shoot AF-C at 20 fps.

While other camera formats like full frame, APS-C and M4/3 each have their unique strengths, I would be hard-pressed to find another camera system that could have captured these images as well as my Nikon 1 gear did at 15 fps.

My intent is to keep this photography blog advertising free. If you enjoyed this article and/or my website and would like to make a modest $10 donation through PayPal to support my work it would be most appreciated. You can use the Donate button below. Larger donations can be made to tom@tomstirr.com through PayPal.

Article and all images Copyright Thomas Stirr. All rights reserved. No use, duplication of any kind, or adaptation is allowed without written consent.