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Barn Swallow in Flight

 
Barn Swallow in Flight - copyright owned by Pinetree3

Barn Swallow in Flight

Catching a shot of a barn swallow in flight is quite a challenge. These little guys are quite fast. I was walking across a field and several appeared to be following me in a rapid dance. Apparently, they were feasting on little invisible insects that I had stirred up. I snapped a lot of high speed pictures, but had difficulty keeping them in the frame. Also, my Automatic Focusing for the most part could not keep up with their quick changes in the direction of their flight. Several hundred of shots later, I did get a couple worth presenting. Thank God for digitial photography.


Equipment:
Canon - Zoom Telephoto EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM Autofocus Lens

Created by: Pinetree3.
Tools Used: anon 20D
Created on: June, 2008 
Image Views: 105
Average Views per Day: 0.2
Image Number: 48875

A large image is available of Barn Swallow in Flight.
 
 
 

Comments:
 
Anne from USA on Jun 6, 2008 at 9:41 AM said:  

A beautiful capture of the barn swallow in flight!!! Your picture caught its movement so well and showed off its head and beak to perfection!!! Wonderful picture. Congratulations.

Brianpaddock from ENGLAND on Jun 5, 2008 at 4:09 AM said:  

good capture Pineture3 looks as if it is flying through a hurricane with the position you caught the wings

Karenmoen from United States of America on Jun 4, 2008 at 4:46 AM said:  

Wow, this is certainly an image of which to be proud. Excellent color and detail. Well done!

Jas from England on Jun 3, 2008 at 2:38 PM said:  

Well done! Amazing shot; it looks like a fighter jet speeding across the sky. :)

Sparkle1103 from USA on Jun 3, 2008 at 10:04 AM said:  

Beeeaaauuuutttifful. Great shot. You are right they are very difficult to get a shot of as they flit flat thru the sky.

Pinetree3 from United States on Jun 3, 2008 at 7:06 AM said:  

For future reference, here is how I did it:

I found that walking through the field stirred up enough bugs, that the swallows would swarm around me. This gave me plenty of subjects to shoot at. Whenever things slowed down, I would start walking again, and a few seconds later, the swallows were back circling.

I used a telephoto lens, at about 200mm. I had the cammera set to the sports mode, but also tried shooting in the shutter priority mode at about 2000/sec and above, with a 400iso. That way I had enough light to shoot at fast speed. I then followed the bird with my camera WITHOUT LOOKING THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER. When I first tried to shoot through the viewfinder, I would lose the bird quickly. Later I tried the approach of pointing the camera in the bird's direction while keeping my face close to the viewfinde. I found I could fairly well track the bird, while keeping the camera pointed in generally the right direction. I lost about 1/2 my shots because the bird was not in the frame. The majority of the other half, had the bird out of focus, because the lens and camera could not autofocus in time to get a good shot. I was fortunate to have a CF card with a lot of space, (enough for 1K pictures), so I could shoot multiple bursts at high speed without concern. About 1 in 100 was a fairly good shot, but that was enough.

I was surprised how small the bird appeared in the frame, even with the telephoto, but a focused shot with a good lens, enables you to crop the picture fairly tightly and have the final product still be acceptable.

Shutterbug from USA on Jun 3, 2008 at 6:45 AM said:  

Wonderful capture of the bird in flight.

Carol

Alandrapal from Canada on Jun 3, 2008 at 3:58 AM said:  

Very impressive, Alex! Bravo! Great capture of the barn swallow. There are a lot of violet backed swallows in the area where the great blue herons are nesting, and each summer I wonder if I'd ever be able to capture a shot of one of them, but have my doubts. As you say, they fly amazingly fast.


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