Mike Powell

What is the best way to capture motion and have the subject in focus? Recently I have been experimenting with different camera settings and shooting techniques in trying to photograph birds in flight.

Yesterday I concentrated a large part of my efforts on Canada Geese (Branta canadensis). They make good test subjects because they are large and relatively slow-flying birds (and there are lots of them). I have done a number of postings of geese taking off and landing and in those cases I usually try to freeze the action. Getting the photo in focus is not always easy, but the action is usually taking place in a small geographic space and that helps a little with getting the focus locked in.

Capturing the geese before they being the landing process or after they are in flight has always been tough for me, but I think my skills are improving with practice. Generally I will try to focus on a single goose to make things easier. Yesterday, though, I decided to try to capture a group of geese flying together and had some success using a panning technique. The background blurred nicely, the necks of the geese are in focus, the wings have a bit of motion blur, and the geese themselves have assumed interesting poses. As I recall, I had my focusing point on one of the geese in the center. Some of the photographers I see with really long telephoto lenses have special mounts on their tripods that let the lenses swing freely as they track the birds, but for the most part I have been taking these shots hand-held.

I used a slightly different technique with a couple of geese that were closer. Using one of the first rules I learned about photographing people and animals, I tried to focus on the nearest eye of one of the geese. Well, actually I probably was trying to keep my focusing point on the goose’s head in reality, but I was thinking of the eye. As you can see, there was not a lot of depth of field, but things worked out well with the face of the nearest goose in pretty sharp focus. The blurry wings provide a nice contrast with the sharper elements and my eyes are drawn to the goose’s eyes and open bill.

For me, experimentation is one of the best ways to learn new things and I am definitely learning more and more about my camera and my techniques, which will help me when I try to photograph subjects, like hawks, that are less cooperative than the Canada Geese.

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