birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

One of the things all BIF photographers need to do is practice their skills. Over the Memorial Day weekend I spent a few hours at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge near Seneca Falls, NY. The wildlife drive was so crowded that I decided to get in some shots of the Purple Martins coming and going to their nesting colony near the visitors center. There was a lot of activity as it is early in the breeding season with birds carrying nesting material and changing places brooding already laid eggs while the mate went out to forage.

It was an overcast day hence the white backgrounds. This also meant that I was shooting at less than optimal settings. I like to shoot, in bright sun, at 1/2000, f/8 and ISO 800. I found myself shooting at 1/1250 at f/ 6.3, not the best aperture for my 100-400 Mk I and not quite fast enough to stop the action. I don't like to shoot at a higher ISO as that introduces too much noise with my 7D Mk II. You make do with what nature gives you.

I prefer the higher shutter speed as these are smaller birds that move quickly and somewhat erratically and therefor are hard to keep centered in the frame. For autofocus, I used all 65 points with the center point as the initiating point which works well against the clear sky. On the 7D Mk II this is available only when in AI-Servo AF. I also used autofocus Case 5 which is for" erratic subjects moving quickly in any direction". For those of you using Canon 1, 5 and 7 series cameras you will know what I mean. This allows me to tailor the AF system's tracking sensitivity, AF point switching speed and sensitivity to speed changes.

Martins, as well as other birds, fly into the wind as they come in for a landing. So all I needed to do was to watch for an approaching bird, get it in my viewfinder early and begin tracking it. As soon as the bird was large enough in the frame I would focus on it using Back Button Focusing and began shooting using the high speed continuous setting.

I ended up shooting about 600 frames, kept 75. The discards were either out of focus, poor angles like butt shots, or duplicates. Here are 4 that I hope you enjoy.

I encourage all of you to get out and practice your skill set. Find a Martin colony, a flock of seagulls, or terns and just try different settings to see what works for you!

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chaman

You shoot RAW? These look overexposed which makes the colors look dull and washed out. It seems like they need some PP to make them pop.

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Well Done, I can appreciate how difficult these Small birds are to capture in flight...

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

Chaman,

Thanks for the comments. Purple Martins have iridescent blue/purple colors that do not show up well in flat light such as I had when I was shooting. In fact they can look rather black. A little extra exposure brought out the color but, as you have noted, leaves them looking a bit washed out. Extra saturation does make them pop but, to my eye, they look unnatural. What I came up with was a compromise that I can live with. The post was intended to be more about getting practice in tracking and focusing on small birds rather than making wall hangers.

As an aside, blue color in birds as well as iridescence is what is know as structural color. "There is no blue or purple pigment involved. Blue and iridescent colors in birds are never produced by pigments, however. They are "structural colors." The blues are produced by minute particles in the feather that are smaller in diameter than the wavelength of red light. These particles are able to influence only shorter wavelengths, which appear blue, and are "scattered" -- reflected in all directions. Thus structural blue colors remain the same when they are viewed at different angles in reflected light. If, however, they are viewed by transmitted light (that is, with the feather between the light source and the observer), the blue disappears.
Iridescent colors are produced by differential reflection of wavelengths from highly modified barbules of the feathers that are rotated so that a flat surface faces the incoming light. The detailed structure of the barbule reflects some wavelengths and absorbs others, and the reflected wavelength changes with the angle of reflection. The structural color is registered by the eye in response to the reflected wavelengths and changes with the angle formed by the light, the reflecting surface, and the eye." - Stanford University, the color of birds.

Revet Loc: Fairview Park, Ohio

Thanks for posting the pictures, your settings, and your technique. I just got a Nikon d500 with BIF in mind and I can't wait to get out there and practice with all the tracking options it has. I think I will start with seagulls first though.

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

Hi Birdpix and thank you for the post and discussion about your settings. Interesting. Little quick birds are really tough and considering the conditions you got some nice shots. I can't agree with you more re the limitations of the 7DII when it comes to image noise at higher ISO's. It is one of the main reasons I only shoot full frame now, but, I loose the benefit of the additional reach. Life is full of trade offs.

I spending some time with some Terns a few weeks back basically trying to work on my flight skills, so I can relate. You are using a couple of settings I have not tried and thanks for the encouragement to experiment. For instance, I have not tried Case 5. Are you using Canon's default setup in Case 5 or have you customized it to suit your needs. I seem to be stuck Case 3 with some modifications suggested by other bird photographers but while I was photographing the Terns I looked at Case 5 and wondered about trying it. Also, I had never tried setting the initial AF point for the various AF methods. That seems to make sense in that if you don't have that set up, the various modes would look at anything in the screen to do the initial focus. This would provide a little more control.

Anyway, thanks for your post and appreciate any insight on how you have Case 5 setup.

chaman

Regarding the 7dII and level of noise:

These are from a 7dII at:

ISO 6400

LY2A4107 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

ISO 1600

LY2A4006 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

I invite to click on then and appreciate how the noise was handled.

If you expose right and manage noise effectively in PP the camera produces excellent images at high ISOs. Ive never bought the argument of noise with this particular camera. The 7D was indeed noisy but this one is in another league. I agree about the benefits of full frame, I have a 5D Mark IV, but the argument about noise is always taken out of proportion.

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

You may be right, and those are pretty nice images. But what I know: whenever I processed a 7DII image, I always had to manage the noise, event with good exposures, but I am very picky and why, in film days, I shot with a 4X5. Now, when I process an image from my 5DIV, even cropped to the equivalent magnification of the 7DII, I hardly ever need to manage the noise. Large, uniform areas of an 5DIV image are smooth as silk.

chaman

My point is that yes, you will need to manage the noise BUT it can be done so effectively. Contrary to the original 7D where the noise produced by that sensor was coarser, much more difficult to deal with.

Whenever I shoot in poorly lit places I take my 5D Mark IV, no question about it. It will handle noise much better BUT my point is that the 7D II handles noise quite well. The noise issue is taken out of proportion so many times.