Here are some different shots from Lake Lochloosa in Florida. The lake flies had hatched and the lake surface was covered with them. When you have prey, you have predators and the swallows were out in numbers not seen in years. As we slowly motored in the shallows, the swallows were all over us chasing the lake flies. Having never photographed birds this small and fast, it was a challenge. Lots of attempts and finally a few successes.
All of these were taken with a Canon R5 with the 100-500 with a shutter speed of 1/5-8000 of a second. I used auto ISO but later changed to a set ISO of between 2500 and 3200 since the background was more uniform.
Used a bit smaller aperture for more depth and was mostly successful.
(
Download)
Watching a swallow pick a fly off of the lake surface was challenging, it was happening all around the boat all the time.
(
Download)
This one was a bit closer.
(
Download)
Caught this bird and also got the fly it was chasing.
(
Download)
Nice shooting and it looks like fun.
Nice set. I find it very difficult to capture those guys in flight.
Impressive results with a very elusive subject, Jim!
I thought Kingfishers were difficult until I tried Swallows. Nice work on these!!
UTMike wrote:
Impressive results with a very elusive subject, Jim!
I’ll double down on this comment!
Like the last shot. That would be a spray & pray type of shooting for me. Have fun.
BassmanBruce wrote:
Nice shooting and it looks like fun.
Thanks for looking and it was great fun.
kpmac wrote:
Nice set. I find it very difficult to capture those guys in flight.
It took more than a few attempts but after 700-800 attempts, finally got some good one.
If you want to reply, then
register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.