First Timer shooting Birds in Flight

[mrjoemorgan]

Hi all,

I was in the Chilterns Hills last week and got to see a flurry of Red Kites fly near the house, so thought I would take the camera out and photograph some birds in flight for the first time.

Gear = Olympus EM5.2 + 40-150 2.8 PRO + 1.4mc

Firstly, I find shooting anything moving with this gear setup a NIGHTMARE! I know the EM5 is really not good at continuous AF due to reasons that are on many other threads, and I might be spoilt having come from the Canon 1Dx family - but it is pretty embarrassing that a $2000 setup is THIS bad at continuous AF. I bought the EM5 for size mostly and dont shoot a lot of action these days. I am hoping the new mark III will improve on this. Or I might switch to the 1 series

Anyways, I digress. Here is an example of one of the shots I captured. Straight out of the camera, no crop, shot in RAW, converted to JPG for upload.

ISO 320 1/1250th f7.1

As you can see, it is a little soft. In hindsight, I should have gone with a slighter faster shutter. Is the softness down to the 1.4x converter or purely down to gear with the poor continuous AF so the focus is maybe a tiny bit off?

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Thoughts and opinions greatly appreciated

Cheers

Joe

 

[Jock Elliott]

Joe,

A. Looks sharp enough to me.

B. I'd be proud to take that shot.

Cheers, Jock

 

[masayoshi]

I agree with Jock.
You did extremely well, considering the EM5.2 which is contrast based continuous AF?
For fast flying birds like Kite or Falcons, I usually try 1/2000 or 1/2500 as default, but that leads to higher ISO, like 1600 or 3200, especially when TC is mounted. It's tough, but I like the portability of m43 for BIF photography. Really nice first job, and welcome to BIF addiction club!

 

[mrjoemorgan]

Thank you @masayoshi and @Jock Elliott - appreciate your comments. Maybe I'm being too picky! With a little PP they came out pretty nice!

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[Mikehit]

Continual AF covers so many situations. A bird soaring like those kites is no great stresser for an AF system because the movement is neither fast nor changing the distance at any great speed; nor is it any problem for any movement that is largely parallel (or close to it) to the camera: the limit is whether you can track the action and consistently keep the AF dot on the bird.
AF is challenged the more the movement swings towards or away from the photographer and the camera needs to assess and predict the motion.