This article features some handheld images of pigeons taking flight which have been adjusted with the Lasso Tool in PhotoShop. Folks who enjoy photographing birds-in-flight often have opportunities where birds are perched on human-made objects. These can sometimes detract from an image.

This article discusses some considerations on how to compose these types of images, and remove the distracting elements with the Lasso Tool in PhotoShop. All of the images featured in this article were captured handheld in my backyard in less than 25 minutes.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

There are some basic considerations when composing a photograph in anticipation of a bird taking flight. As we can see in the above full frame capture, it is important to allow some free space in the composition into which our subject bird is anticipated to fly.

We also need to observe the perch and study how birds using that perch launch into flight. For example, the pergola in the back corner of my backyard is about 3.5 metres wide (~11.5 feet). Birds perched on the left hand side (like the pigeons featured in this article) tend to fly from right to left. Birds perched in the centre of the pergola tend to fly in a downward direction towards some nearby bird feeders. And, birds perched on the right hand side of the pergola tend to fly from left to right.

Wind direction can also be an important consideration when planning to photograph birds taking flight, as they tend to launch into the prevailing wind. Birds also tend to fly towards an open area that provides more safety in terms of a bird not getting ambushed by a ground based predator.

As is the case with any composition, we also need to consider the background. We can see in the above image, the trees in my neighbour’s backyard are far enough away from the pergola to be reasonably out of focus… lessening the potential visual distraction from those trees.

As we can see in all of the images that appear after the lead photograph, the pergola structure has been removed with the Lasso Tool in PhotoShop. I find it helpful to make any necessary crops before using the Lasso Tool.

Removing distractions like portions of the pergola is easy to do by using the Lasso Tool to draw a free form shape around the distracting element. Then using the ‘Fill’ command with ‘Content Aware’ to replace the distracting element. This command is found under the Edit heading. There are plenty of YouTube videos and articles on the internet on how to use the Lasso Tool, so I won’t go into any more detail here.

Removing the human-made pergola from the bottom right-hand corner of the photographs helps make each of them more focused and visually pleasing. The image above, and the next five that follow, are all from the same Pro Capture H run.

As you can see with the previous six images, using a fast frame rate of 60 frames-per-second often generates a multitude of useable images from the same photographic run.

In a recent article we discussed some of the potential benefits of using a single, small auto-focus point along with Single AF when photographing subjects taking flight or landing. All of the images in this article are more examples of using that technique.

We appreciate that some readers may be concerned with using Single AF when photographing birds-in-flight since this mode locks focus and exposure based on the first frame. Then it applies the locked focus and exposure to the balance of the photographs in the run.

All of the images featured in this article were photographed using focal lengths that varied from 218 mm to 276 mm, and with an aperture of f/6.3. The distance to subject was about 14.5 feet for many of the images These combinations of shooting parameters create depth-of-field values ranging from 54.5 cm (~1.8 feet) to about 83 cm (~2.7 feet).

This range of depth-of-field is sufficient to keep birds the size of pigeons in focus if the flight direction is correctly anticipated.

Learning to use the Lasso Tool (or similar features in other software programs) is a quick and easy way to remove distracting elements in a photograph. This can extend the number of image opportunities for a photographer for a wide range of genres… including birds taking flight from human-made objects.

Planning our image captures of birds taking flight are easy to execute if we follow some basic guidelines as outlined in this article.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear noted in the EXIF data. Images were produced from RAW  files using my standard process. My standard Pro Capture H settings were used for all of the images featured in this article. Pre-Shutter Frames and Frame Limiter were both set to 15. Single AF with a single, small AF point was used, along with a frame rate of 60 frames-per-second. using Single AF. This is the 1,349 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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