Photographing swallows in-flight has been one of my favourite pastimes for a number of years now, but one that has come with a lot of challenges. Swallows can be swift and erratic flyers which can represent an exercise in frustration when starting on this journey. This article shares a number of photographs of swallows in-flight and discusses my journey with this subject matter over the past number of years.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

I went back through my image archives on this website to try to establish the first time I published any images of swallows in-flight. My first images date back to May 2016, and were captured during one of my visits to Mountsberg Conservation Area… at a location in the park called Swallowville.

I can still remember observing dozens and dozens of swallows darting about in Swallowville (a tiny bird city of nesting boxes at Mountsberg) trying to decide which bird was my best photographic opportunity. I quickly discovered that my eye/hand coordination at that time was woefully inadequate to pan with these pocket rockets.

So, I pre-focused on one specific perched bird which appeared to be a female being repeatedly visited by what I assume was its mate… or a suitor. I captured a reasonable number of useable images. This experience confirmed that my photographic style is open and freewheeling… and not at all suited to using a tripod.

I found some barn swallow nests under the overhangs on one of the barn buildings at Mountsberg. With some pre-focusing, I was able to get some successful images as the swallows returned to their nests.

This early experience trying to photograph swallows in-flight taught me two important lessons. The first was how critically important it is to observe subject birds and to study their behaviours. The second was for me to develop an image capturing strategy that was compatible with my preferred handheld shooting style.

A few months later in July 2016 I drove out to Ruthven Park in Cayuga. This location is known to be visited by numerous species of migrating birds… so much so that there is a bird banding station on site.

I had heard that there were some Purple Martin nesting boxes at Ruthven so I decided to put my skills to the test. Purple Martins are the largest swallow in North America, so I thought it may be a bit easier photographing these larger swallows in-flight.

I was pleased to discover that Ruthven Park had a good number of nesting boxes attached to several tall posts in an open area. This location afforded me good, open sight lines… and more time to try to pan with incoming birds. My eye/hand coordination still wasn’t quite up to the task. So, I focused on Purple Martins as they came into land at the nesting boxes… and had some success doing so.

To help compensate for my somewhat weak eye/hand coordination skills, I decided to shorten the focal length of my telephoto zoom. This gave me more latitude to get an incoming swallow framed in my viewfinder.

I then pre-focused on the perch of a nesting box to give the auto-focusing of my camera and telephoto zoom lens a head start on acquiring focus on an incoming bird. These technique changes worked very well and I had a successful visit to Ruthven Park.

In the summer of 2017 I started specifically looking for swallows when visiting Hendrie Valley. I had no success photographing swallows in free flight at this location. The backgrounds tended to be very busy making it difficult for my gear to acquire focus. I settled for some images of perched birds when opportunities presented themselves.

I continued to practice my eye/hand coordination during my visits to Hendrie Valley, and captured the occasional photograph of parent swallows in mid-air feeding their perched young.

By the summer of 2018 my eye/hand coordination had improved sufficiently that I could capture some images of swallows approaching nesting boxes without having to pre-focus my lens. I began to spend time at Windemere Basin Park in Hamilton.

The break-through for me photographing swallows in-flight came when I switched over the Olympus M4/3 system… and began using the E-M1X. The continuous auto-focus was more responsive than other cameras I had used. This gave me a feeling of confidence when panning with swallows in-flight. I started to frequently visit the swallow nesting boxes at Windemere Basin Park in Hamilton.

That summer photographing swallows in-flight became much more predictable from a success standpoint. But rather than a creative experience… it became routine. I knew that any time that I went out to Windemere Basin Park I could confidently capture images of swallows in-flight… but the birds tended to be at a distance. And… the resulting photographs often looked very similar. Boredom with this subject matter was beginning to set in. I needed something more.

A watershed moment happened when I began seriously experimenting with Pro Capture H, using a frame rate of 60 frames-per-second. I concentrated my efforts on swallows launching into flight from nesting boxes, fence posts, and branches. I absolutely loved the variety of body and wing positions I was able to capture.

The first frame of a Pro Capture H image run with my E-M1X sets auto-focus and exposure for the balance of the run. This meant that I had to study… and better anticipate… the flight path that a swallow would take when it launched into flight. If I did not properly anticipate a swallow’s flight path there was a chance it would fly out of focus during my image run. This was especially true if it was flying towards my camera.

I experimented with a wide variety of settings for Pre-Shutter Frames and Frame Limiter, trying to find what worked best for me. I finally decided on setting both of them to 15.

This meant I could continuously spool 15 images into temporary memory when my shutter release was half depressed. These photographs would then be written to my memory card when I fully depressed the shutter release… but I wouldn’t get any additional frames after those 15 in temporary memory were written to my memory card. From a pragmatic standpoint this gave me 1/4 second of response time to fully depress my shutter release… which I found was adequate for my purposes.

When Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking was added to the firmware of my E-M1X this opened up further opportunities when photographing swallows in-flight. I could now confidently capture swallows in free flight that were in closer to me, and when two birds were interacting.

I kept experimenting and pushing myself and my camera gear. Eventually I programmed my C3 Custom Mode as my Pro Capture H bird setting… and have never changed it. This is the setting I use most often when photographing swallows launching into flight. I investigated other potential locations to photograph swallows in flight. Biggar Lagoons in Grimsby became my preferred location.

There was still a lot of experimentation to do. Using Pro Capture H required me to better anticipate not only the direction of a swallow taking flight, but also the timing of its flight launch.

Occasionally I used my wife’s E-M1 Mark III and her M.Zuiko 75-300 mm f/4.8-6.7 II zoom lens.

This combination worked very well and gave me a smaller, lighter equipment option… although I still much preferred the comfort, handling and ergonomics of my E-M1X.

Ongoing experimentation resulted in me shooting from a wide range of shooting angles to help minimize the inclusion of the flight launch surface. Using the Lasso tool in PhotoShop CS6 when needed, helped eliminate human-made structures from some of my photographs.

I began using the M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS lens with the MC-14 teleconverter for increased reach. This opened up even more potential to capture swallows that were in open fields, as they launched into flight.

Most recently I added the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS super zoom lens to my kit. This further enhanced my bird photography capability… including photographing swallows in-flight. The 150-600 is now my ‘go to’ lens for bird and nature photography.

I find that I am able to capture a very wide assortment of swallow body and wing positions when using Pro Capture H at 60 frames-per-second. This keeps my creative juices flowing when I’m out in the field.  Every outing has become an adventure.

I programmed my C1 Custom Mode to use a combination Pro Capture L with Bird Detection AI Subject Detection. All of my bird photography is done with a single, small AF point. C1 is now my ‘go to’ setting when I photograph a wide variety of birds in free flight. I occasionally use this mode for swallows in free flight… but sometimes find the resulting images have sameness about them.

So, I look for specific swallow activity when using Pro Capture L in concert with Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking. For example, swallows that are hunting insects in mid-air add some uniqueness to photographs which I enjoy.

There are other specific situations where I like to use Pro Capture L in combination with Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking with swallows. One such situation is when swallows are diving into the surface of a pond to bathe. I love capturing moments of anticipation just as they are about to hit the water.

As well as unique action frames… like when a swallow is exiting the water after a shallow dive.

Learning to effectively photograph swallows in-flight has taken some time and effort. And, there is still more learning to be had… in order to do these magnificent, little birds justice.

Improving my bird observation skills has been a cornerstone in my journey photographing swallows in-flight. So too has practicing my eye/hand coordination and shutter release timing. Learning how to best utilize my camera equipment and its computational photography technology has been critical.

Self-improvement in any area of life takes patience and dedication. With photography, we are rewarded with the memories of the wonderful moments we have captured… whenever we choose to view those images. These are gifts that keep on giving.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld with the camera equipment  noted in the EXIF data. All images were created from RAW files using my standard process in post. This is the 1,419 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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