Practice: Grackles in flight

[Steve Foss]

I set this up outside my feeding-station blind in my backyard and decided that, since tons of grackles were all I had today, I'd "love the one you're with" and work a bit to get nice images of them in flight. Mostly, this is a warmup for winter, when we get lots of pine and evening grosbeaks, as well as redpolls and other winter feeder lovers.

I've got tons of "bird on a stick" images of those species that are just fine and have a necessary place in my portfolio, but next for all those species is birds in flight.

You don't need a lens with muscle, either. Even 200mm is fine for the littler birds. These were all shot from about 4 feet away with the Canon 100 macro, leaving a little room around the scene in case I got some with wings fully flared, which did happen. Some of these are full frame, a couple cropped slightly.

I shot from the blind with just the lens sticking out. Selected manual focus and locked focus on a spot about four inches on the other side of the perch, then attached the remote shutter release and never looked through the shutter again. These were shot from a tripod that was locked down tight. By eyeballing the situation through the slit in the blind, it's easy to see when a bird or birds approach(es) the perch and to trigger the camera burst. I used the remote release so I didn't have to have my hand raised to the camera all the time. That helped partly because my arm didn't get tired and partly because those birds can see movement inside the blind through the small opening from three feet away and they will spook at that from time to time.

I probably triggered a total of 150 images. Of those 20 were in sharp focus. Of those, these four were the best. You'll note that DOF is very shallow so shutter speed is fast enough to render the important portions of the bird sharply. Such a shallow DOF yields fewer in focus shots, but those that are tend to be sweet because of the high SS. You should also note, those of you with DSLRs or lenses that focus slowly, that this technique removes those drawbacks from the situation.

A backyard blind is only a $60 to $100 investment. I recommend it. I'm lucky in that the edge of my yard is 40 feet on the other side of my feeder, so nice buttery background bokeh is not a problem, even using this 100mm. The f2.8 helps, but the biggest factor affecting BG bokeh in these setups is the distance the BG is behind the subject, with focal length being next important and aperture third.

So, here are the grackles. All with the Canon 30D and Canon 100 macro from a Manfrotto 724B tripod.

iso400, 1/1600 at f2.8

iso400, 1/1600 at f2.8

iso400, 1/1600 at f2.8

iso200, 1/640 at f3.5

[mcary]

Sweeeeet!!! I really the the 2nd, but my favorite is the 4th. Gotta love the eye contact images. Looks like your set to have some fun with all the birds that should be migrating through this time of year.

[Steve Foss]

Thanks, Michael. The fouth is my fave, as well. Wish it was a sharp-shinned hawk or something, but heck, grackles are people too.

[Dbl]

Yep, that fourth shot is a beauty! Really cool stuff.

[The_Duckslayer]

Steve, all great shots as usual. #4 would be my favorite one also but I like #1 also because when you watch them flying you never see their wings in that type of a parachute pattern. Pretty cool! Thanks for sharing. Take care and N Joy the Hunt././Jimbo

[mcary]

If your really serious about that sharp-shinned or cooper's, etc. The migration is starting in down here and will be in full swing within a week or so. I saw mixed groups of raptors kettling up over the lake this past sunday. You can bet I'll dedicate some time down at the ridge.

[Jim Almquist]

Neat stuff Steve and thanks for some great info.

[toughguy]

I never thought those ugly birds could look so good. Very cool.