Tag Archives: shutter speed

Birds in Flight – Wildlife Photography Tips #17

In the realm of really great bird photographs – the National Geographic cover shots and international contest winners – the subjects are almost always shown in flight. And it makes sense: action shots are more engaging than static images, and the action of flight is the one thing that most expresses what it is to be a bird. So not surprisingly, within the world of wildlife photographers, Birds in Flight – or “BIF” – is a particular specialty with its own unique skill set.

Birds in Flight - Short-billed Dowitcher
Short-billed Dowitcher. 500mm,  f/7.1, 1/2000 sec, ISO 800.

Capturing great images of a birds in flight requires patience, skill, and judgement. I don’t claim to be anywhere close to having mastered this particular aspect of photography, but I have learned a few things along the way. Consider this a beginners’ guide to BIF.

Birds in Flight – What makes a Great Image?

Technical qualities. Needless to say, as with any great image, a BIF photo should show crisp focus, proper exposure, and enough depth of field so that the whole bird is in focus

Activity. An image of a bird in its element is good enough, but it will be more engaging if the bird is doing something recognizable – carrying prey or nesting material, taking off or coming in for a landing, feeding, engaging with other birds, etc.

Composition. As a general rule the bird should be:

  • Flying towards the photographer or seen from a side view. The rear end view of a bird flying away is rarely interesting.
  • Looking towards the viewer. For the best results the focus point should be on the nearest eye.
  • Captured with its wings and legs held in an attractive manner.

And be sure you leave some space in front of a flying bird. The image will look a bit claustrophobic if the bird does not have room to fly.

Background. A bird against a featureless white or blue sky is not as engaging as it would be with a more visually interesting background – glimpses of its habitat, for example a Northern Harrier over grassland or a Red-shouldered Hawk flying amongst the trees, or failing that at least some interesting clouds.

Books, social media posts, and blogs on photography tend to slavishly favour the convention that the background should be out of focus lest it detract attention from the subject. This is actually a stylistic choice not a rule, and you should feel free to ignore it in favour of your own personal vision.

Birds in Flight - Blue-footed Booby
Blue-footed Booby. 300mm, f/8.0, 1/1250 sec, ISO 400
Birds in Flight - Feral Pigeons
Feral Pigeons at Dough Fluhrer Park. 200mm, f/7.1, 1/1600 sec, ISO 160.

Approach

The really great photographs of birds in flight that you have seen in exhibitions and magazines are almost certainly products of a deliberate approach to photography. What I mean by that is that the photographer set out that day aiming to get a particular image. They planned the shoot, considering the light conditions they were looking for, the best background, and where the birds could most advantageously be seen.  Thus preparation put them in the best position to get what they were looking for.

That approach does not fit in well with the normal activities of birding, which usually comprise walking around and seeing the birds as they make themselves available. However there can be good opportunities on a bird walk, particularly in open country, if you adjust your camera up in advance with the settings you would need for a BIF opportunity. Almost all of the images in this article were captured while out birding.

And sometimes you can just get lucky. I am quite pleased with the Red-rumped Bush Tyrant image which came about because on a really bright day I had dialed in a fast shutter speed just to avoid overexposure.

Birds in Flight - Red-rumped Bush Tyrant
:Red-rumped Bush Tyrant. 500mm,  f/5.6, 1/1000 sec, ISO 900.
Birds in Flight - Red-tailed Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk. 500mm, f/7.1, 1/1600 sec, ISO 400.

Settings

The most important setting you will need to adopt for shooting birds in flight is a much faster shutter speed than you normally use. Even birds like swans or herons that appear to be slow and ponderous are actually moving quite quickly. For example, as a Mute Swan flies by, its slow cruise speed of 30kph equates to almost nine metres per second –  for a bird that is about a 1.5 metres long. Combined with the imperfect movement of your lens as you try to track the bird, at a normal shutter speed the resulting shot will be tend to be blurry, or at least not as sharp as you would want. So if you want to freeze the action and get a crisp shot you need a high shutter speed.

How high? There are two answers:

  • It depends on the bird – what it is doing, how close it is, whether it is heading towards you or across your field of vision. Experience will be your best guide in judging how fast the shutter needs to be.
  • But if in doubt, faster is always better.

Shutter Speed Guidelines for Birds in Flight

I reviewed a lot of my own BIF images when researching this article and one thing I noticed is that most of the ones I like were taken at a shutter speed of 1/1600 or higher.

For large, slow-flying or soaring birds (Canada Goose, Red-tailed Hawk) you might get away with a lower speed, particularly if the bird is in a slower phase of movement. The White-faced Ibis below is gliding in for a landing. In this case 1/800 was fast enough to catch the bird and even the water droplets falling off of it but it’s the exception rather than the rule. 1/1600 is better as a baseline – it will improve the number of “keepers” in a shooting session.

Birds in Flight - White-faced Ibis
White-faced Ibis at Erieau ON. 500mm, f/6.3, 1/800 sec, ISO 250.
Birds in Flight - American White Pelican
American White Pelican. 500mm, f/5.6, 1/2000 sec, ISO 1000.

Note that the closer you are to the bird the faster it will cross through your field of vision, so an even higher speed may be needed.

For smaller and/or faster-moving birds the need for speed increases. Each situation is different but as a starting point I would suggest the following minimum speeds:

  • Gulls and other medium-sized birds – 1/2000
  • Swallows, martins and small passerines (e.g. flycatchers, chickadees etc) – start at 1/3200 and be prepared to go up from there, especially if the bird is flying towards you.
  • Hummingbirds – these are a special case. When they are hovering, the best images often show a fair amount of blur of the wings while the body remains stationary (and thus in sharp focus). The blur gives the impression of how fast their wingbeat really is – up to 80 beats per second.
Birds in Flight - Bank Swallow
Bank Swallow. 500mm, f/6.3, 1/3200 sec, ISO 500.
Birds in Flight - Sapphire-spangled Emerald
Sapphire-spangled Emerald. 500mm, f/5.6, 1/1250 sec, ISO 4000.

Technique

Even the fastest shutter speed won’t guarantee a good image. You also need to be able to track the bird closely enough that your autofocus can achieve a lock. Modern cameras have fairly advanced abilities to achieve and maintain focus lock on a moving target, but you can help things out by developing and practicing good habits.

  • Tracking. When you are photographing a series of birds flying across your field of vision, the natural tendency is to aim at a bird as it approaches and then try to twist your body to track it along its line of flight. More experienced BIF photographers decide where they want the bird to be when they take the shot, considering background and proximity, and set there feet so that when the bird hits that point it is straight in front of them. This gives them the greatest control at the critical moment. They then wind their torso left or right to the point where the bird will first appear. It’s a simple trick but it works. The image at the top of the page was shot using this method. A series of Short-billed Dowitchers were flying across a lagoon so it was possible to predict their movement and be set up for the side-on flight shot.

  • Burst Mode. Even the best autofocus system will struggle to keep a moving target constantly in sharp focus. There will always be moments when the focus wanders a bit before the system corrects itself. You can help ensure you come away with some sharp images by firing bursts rather than single frames. To do this, set your shutter release mode to Continuous Low or Continuous High and hold the shutter release down when the bird enters your target zone.

A side benefit of firing bursts is that it also gives you a better chance of acquiring an image where the bird is doing what you want it to do – looking towards you, holding its wings in a graceful manner, etc. Note the series of unprocessed images of an Andean Gull below. This short burst took less than one second but you can see the variety of shapes and wing positions during that span. Longer bursts increase the chances of getting the shot you really want.

  • Environment. You can also use the wind to your advantage. All else being equal a bird flying into a headwind will be moving more slowly relative to the ground observer and thus easier to track.

Light

The use of fast shutter speeds significantly reduces the amount of light that reaches the camera’s sensor. In practice this means that BIF photography in low-light conditions will necessitate high ISO values with the attendant problem of excessive noise. The best results tend to come when there is full daylight but without the harsh glare of the midday sun. Days that are brightly-lit but overcast can provide excellent conditions as overly-bright highlights will be less of a problem, but in this case you will want to have something in the background other than a pale grey sky.

And if you are shooting upwards on a bright day, for example at a soaring raptor, remember that exposure compensation is your friend. Increasing your exposure by a stop or two will avoid the dreaded underwing shadow and help you bring out the colour and detail of the bird’s undersides.

Equipment

In most situations all you need to start experimenting with birds in flight photography is the camera you already have (DSLR or mirrorless) and a telephoto lens. For close range work, for example chickadees at Lemoine Point, a shorter telephoto in the 200mm range will work, otherwise you should look for a lens of at least 300mm. My article on the September Blue Bill identified some good choices at various price levels.

The only caveat is that if you start to shoot in long bursts you may need to upgrade to a faster memory card.

If you become really enthusiastic about BIF then you may eventually want to look at a tripod with a gimbal mount. I may eventually head in this direction, but at the moment I almost exclusively hand-hold my cameras so I am not in a position to recommend specific options. 

Practice

Like any other photography skill your ability to photograph birds in flight will improve with practice. Fortunately you don’t have to go far afield to work on your skills – nature has provided us with an ample supply of gulls, feral pigeons and Mallards that are abundant, easily found, and not too afraid of people. They are great subjects to work with as you start out on your BIF journey. Good shooting!

…and if you find all of this too easy, and you really want to drive yourself mad, there’s always IIF – insects in flight. 😊

Birds in Flight - Forster's Tern
Forster’s Tern. 500mm, f/6.3, 1/2500 sec, ISO 400.
Birds in Flight - Grey-headed Albatross
Grey-headed Albatross. 500mm, f/6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 200.

Shutter Speed – Wildlife Photography Tips #2

Originally published in The Blue Bill, the journal of the Kingston Field Naturalists, Volume 66, No. 4, December 2019

Freezing the Action – Shutter Speed and Shutter Priority Mode

One of the major challenges of wildlife photography (and sports photography for that matter) is the need to choose a sufficiently fast shutter speed. Like all photographers we need to balance available light, depth of field, metering modes and focus points. But unlike, say, landscape or portrait photographers our subject matter tends to move quickly in unpredictable ways.

If our camera’s shutter speed is fast enough we will be able to “freeze” the action of fast-moving subjects and get a crisp image. So in principle the solution is to always use a fast shutter speed. And there are some circumstances where this approach will work. But much more often we will be engaged in a balancing act, adjusting variables such as shutter speed, aperture, and film speed (ISO) to get a correct exposure.

The Basics of Exposure

In very simple terms the image your camera produces is governed by the amount of light that falls on the sensor. A correctly exposed wildlife image will show the creature or plant in natural light with no areas that are too dark (underexposed) or too bright (overexposed), and will be crisp with no motion-induced blurring. Photo 1 shows an American Pipit, and to my eye the exposure is good – all detail is visible and the bird’s foot is frozen in mid-stride.

Photo 1 – American Pipit

Exposure is controlled by three settings: aperture (the amount of light that the lens allows to reach the sensor); shutter speed (the length of time that the sensor is exposed to the light); and film speed or ISO (the sensitivity of the sensor).[1]

Each of these variables has implications that the photographer needs to understand:

Shutter speed

As noted above, the primary way to get a crisp exposure of a moving animal (or a plant blowing in the wind) is to use a fast shutter speed. The downside of fast shutter speeds is that less light reaches your camera’s sensor. Shutter speed is expressed in fractions of a second. Each step up in shutter speed (e.g. from 1/250 to 1/500) halves the amount of light available. So except in very bright, sunny conditions faster shutter speeds can lead to underexposed images. To an extent you may be able to fix underexposure in post-processing, but artificially adjusting the exposure by more than a small amount adversely affects the quality of the image.

For stationary subjects you can use a slower than normal shutter speed and hope for the best, but typically the creature will move just as you snap the shutter. Photo 2 is a Coatimundi seen just after dawn. I had to use a slow shutter speed and a high film speed to get the shot. If you look closely you will see that the face is slightly blurry as it moves its head to the side.

Shutter speed 1/80
Photo 2 – Coatimundi

So if shutter speed isn’t the whole solution, what else can you do to increase your chances of getting a crisp image?

Aperture

Wide apertures allow more light in, so in the low-light conditions we are often dealing with a wide aperture seems like a good choice. The more light that passes through the lens, the faster your shutter speed can be. But as you might guess there are no easy solutions here. First, telephoto lenses capable of wide apertures are ruinously expensive. For example the Nikon NIKKOR 300MM ƒ2.8G ED lens, a favourite of professional wildlife photographers, will set you back a cool $6899.99 plus HST. So most of us will be using lenses with narrower apertures, and thus will have less light to play with.

Moreover, the wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. For the wildlife photographer, this creates a problem: the image may be correctly exposed but parts of the creature are not in focus. Photo 3, a Pearl Crescent, is correctly exposed. But even at ƒ7.1, a middle of the range aperture, the depth of field is shallow enough that the wing closest to the viewer is not in focus. The tails of birds can also fall prey to depth of field issues. In photo 4 the tail of the Canada Jay is a bit soft-edged, as it was beyond the optimal depth of field.

Film Speed (ISO)

Before the advent of digital cameras, photographers adjusted for low-light or fast-moving subjects by using faster film. So instead of ISO 64 or 100 film they might switch in a roll of ISO 200. This involved a big trade-off in image quality, as faster films producing grainer images. ISO 400 was about the maximum usable speed.

Now we have digital cameras capable of ISO equivalents of up to 51,000 so is the problem solved? Yes and no. Good quality digital cameras can produce very good images at higher ISO ratings, but only to a point. Just as fast film was prone to graininess, digital camera sensors can generate “noise” at higher speeds.

If you are interested in learning more about digital noise I recommend this post on the Photography Life site: https://photographylife.com/what-is-noise-in-photography

With my camera I can get excellent images at ISO 800, and very good ones up to ISO 1000. Speeds faster than that can work reasonably well depending on what you want the image for. Photo 2, for example, was shot at ISO 2000. The image is reasonably crisp and good enough for a record shot, but if you look above and to the right of the creature’s haunches you will see that the image becomes fuzzy (“noisy”) with some random colour blobs.

So what does it all mean? Simply that there is no single recipe for achieving crisp, properly exposed images of wildlife. While we are in the field we have to make continuous judgments about shutter speed, aperture and film speed to enable us to get the images we want.

Shutter Priority Mode

If you spend too much time thinking about these variables you may end up missing some of the action you went out to photograph. So most wildlife photographers use their camera’s mode system to automate part of this work.

All DSLRs and most bridge cameras have four basic operating modes: Manual, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority and Program. I want to explain Shutter Priority mode here because I think it is the most useful option for wildlife photographers.

Your camera will have an easily accessible way of selecting this mode – most often by a rotating dial on the upper right side (Photo 5). For most DSLRs rotating the dial to S puts you in shutter priority mode. Eccentrically, Canon and Pentax call it “Tv” for time value, but the effect is the same.

Photo 5 – Nikon D5300

When you are operating in this mode, you can select the film speed and shutter speed you desire and the camera will automatically adjust the aperture within its limits to ensure a correct exposure. If there is not enough light to get a correct exposure at maximum aperture the camera will warn you somehow, often by inactivating the shutter release. Check your manual to see how your own camera works and what adjustments you can make.

You can actually go a step further and automate your choice of film speed as well. Somewhere in the menu system of your camera there will be an option to select “auto ISO”. This is a tempting option for wildlife photography, as it minimizes the chance of a missed shot. However beware of the fact that cameras left to their own devices tend to bump up the film speed to fairly high levels, so if you use this function check your manual to see if you can set an upper limit on auto ISO.

Recommended Shutter Speeds

So the final piece of the shutter speed puzzle is: how fast is fast enough?

In principle, unless forced to by low light I would recommend a minimum shutter speed of 1/500 for wildlife. Birds and mammals, even if they appear stationary, are often flicking their ears or looking around, so it’s best to err on the safe side. I did a quick check of the wildlife photos I am most proud of and almost all were shot at 1/500 or 1/640. There are exceptions, such as the Chestnut-naped Antpitta at photo 6 (1/00 at ƒ5.6) but I was fortunate that the bird held still for a moment.

Shutter speed 1/100
Photo 6 – Cjestnut-naped Antpitta

For frogs, turtles, and perched butterflies and odonates you can often get by with a slower speed, as they can sit still for lengthy periods. But the Snapping Turtle at photo 7 was being aggressive so I needed 1/500 to freeze her.

Shutter speed 1/500
Photo 7 – Snapping Turtle

Special Cases

Birds in Flight

There is a simple rule of thumb here: the fastest shutter speed you can manage is the one to choose. But you can cheat to some extent based on the type of bird and its activity. The Trumpeter Swan has fairly slow wingbeats, so in photo 8 even 1/250 was enough to get a crisp image. The gliding Red-tailed Hawk in photo 9 was shot in bright daylight so I was able to go to 1/3200 and ensure that the image was crisp.

The Greater Prairie Chickens at a lek in photo 10 were tricky. We were shooting at dawn so there was very little light available, and the birds were actively jousting. I found through trial and error that a shutter speed of 1/2000 was enough to freeze the action. To make that work I had to bump the ISO up to 8000. The resulting image is reasonably good.

By the way, don’t even think about trying to photograph butterflies in flight. That way lies madness.

Hummingbirds

Hummingbird wingbeats are so fast that it is difficult to get a crisp image even in optimal light. Shutter speeds of at least 1/3200 will be needed. And because their wings move in strange ways to allow them to hover, even if you do get a crisp image it will often look rather odd. So unless you can find a perched bird, I find the best approach is to intentionally allow a bit of blur in the wings, which gives the impression of movement. The Western Emerald in photo 11 was shot at 1/320 while hovering. This is about right for the wings, but as you can see the tail is a bit blurred, so a slightly faster speed would have resulted in a better image.

Shutter speed 1/320
Photo 11 – Western Emerald

So that’s the bluffers’ guide to shutter speed. if you have mastered the basic operation of your camera and want to dip your toe into more advanced options why not try experimenting with shutter priority?

Previous posts in this series

[1] Almost all cameras now are digital and do not use film, but the term film speed is still widely used to describe this function.