Bird In Flight Shutter Speeds

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I get questions all the time about the "best" shutter speeds for bird in flight (BIF) photography, so I thought I'd talk about that a little with this post.

First, there's no perfect BIF speed (although, 1/3200 comes close). I have shots from 1/20th all the way to 1/8000th. It just depends on the bird and what I'm trying to accomplish. For this post, we'll just look at speeds for freezing the action.

The speed you pick depends on the speed of the bird. I'm going to do this by size since larger birds are generally slower than smaller birds. However, there are a couple notes...

1. If there's a heavy wind and the bird is flying into it, you can generally drop these speeds at stop (or more) if you need to. If the bird has his back to a brisk wind though, you will likely need another stop faster than what I'm recommending below (or as close as you can get). (In short, it's all about the bird's "ground speed".)

2. If a bird is flying towards you, that's another time you generally want a bit more speed than the estimates below - or at least stick to the higher speeds in the range. When you're panning with the bird, you're helping to overcome some of its speed - when it's coming at you, that goes out the window.

And of course, you need to consider where these speeds put your ISO as well. Generally, when I'm shooting in brighter conditions and all things begin equal, I tend to favor the faster speeds mentioned below. If I'm pushing higher ISOs, I try to get away with the lower shutter speeds - but - with the understanding that my keeper rate may be a touch lower.

All that in mind, here are my shutter speed recommendations for freezing BIF action:

Large Birds (Cranes, Egrets, etc.)

1/1600th ~ 1/3200th

Medium Birds (cormorants, eagles, hawks)

1/2000th ~ 1/4000th

Smaller birds (songbirds)

1/3200th ~ 1/8000th

Of course, it's possible to get sharp images at speeds slower than these (and I have quite often), but these speeds tend to be pretty "safe" if you just want a nice, sharp image.

By the way, my favorite shutter speed for most BIF action is 1/3200th. Seems to work well in most situations.
I would add this consideration for BIF: you may like a little wing blur rather than a fully frozen subject.
To my eye it looks more natural.
That means eg 1/2000 for our Bee-eaters rather than 2500 or 3000.
 
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Exposure compensation can cause issues if you don't pay attention. With my Z cameras, including the Z9, when I press the EC button, the value shows up in my viewfinder info display in yellow over the ISO information. I have to press a button but I can keep my eye to the viewfinder. I got in the habit of checking this to be sure I don't leave it at some unintended value.
 
This may be my all time favorite thread on this forum for some time to come. Thanks to all that have contributed here. Makes my brain boil and adds lots to my notebook to test out with my particular gear. :) :) :) :) :)
 
I don't know...that's not really been my field experience. I can get sharp eyes when panning at as little as 1/20th of a second - and I certainly can't do that with a bird flying towards the camera :) When you're panning side to side, you're keeping some or all of the bird's movement in check since you're panning along (depending on your panning technique of course).

However, when the bird is coming straight at you, that option is gone. While I agree it isn't changing size at a rapid rate (depending on the distance), it's still moving and the size is changing a bit with each second. Different bits of the bird are over different pixels.

I'm going to try to do a little math here, but it's not my first language so correct me if I'm wrong on this :)

Using your 30MPH example, a bird flying right at you is covering 44 feet per second. That's 528 inches per second so at 1/500th of a second, you're getting about an inch of movement. One inch of movement coming at the camera is going to show blur. In fact, I think we can agree that even 1/4 of an inch worth of motion during exposure would probably still be visible with a target coming towards the camera (1/2000th approximately). To get down to 1/8th inch of movement - which I don't think would be noticeable on a target flying towards the camera, you'd need 1/4000th of a second or so. Much more than necessary for all but the fastest birds flying side to side.

Hope that makes sense :)

Thinking about the math a little more, I think you have to go with the vectors, what changed as a percentage of the frame in the different directions of travel relative to the camera, but also consider the separate issue that the wings are still flapping rapidly whether flying toward the camera or laterally. But a bird eye, head, and body traveling left to right without panning would cover X percent of the frame or X pixels in Y time, but the same eye at the same speed coming at the camera would grow a much smaller percentage of the frame in the same time.

So probably both, if freezing the wings is important they would be both flapping and growing in size so require faster shutter speed, but if only eye, head, and body was important then coming at the camera would allow a slower shutter speed.
 
I love to see the interaction between the Science of Physics and the Art of Photography. And you thought Art and Science went hand in hand. Rarely happens though. True Magic happens when you meld the two and make your heart sing with happiness at your creation! Does not really matter what others think but only how your creation makes you feel and the happiness you get from sharing with it others! :)
 
I get questions all the time about the "best" shutter speeds for bird in flight (BIF) photography, so I thought I'd talk about that a little with this post.

First, there's no perfect BIF speed (although, 1/3200 comes close). I have shots from 1/20th all the way to 1/8000th. It just depends on the bird and what I'm trying to accomplish. For this post, we'll just look at speeds for freezing the action.

The speed you pick depends on the speed of the bird. I'm going to do this by size since larger birds are generally slower than smaller birds. However, there are a couple notes...

1. If there's a heavy wind and the bird is flying into it, you can generally drop these speeds at stop (or more) if you need to. If the bird has his back to a brisk wind though, you will likely need another stop faster than what I'm recommending below (or as close as you can get). (In short, it's all about the bird's "ground speed".)

2. If a bird is flying towards you, that's another time you generally want a bit more speed than the estimates below - or at least stick to the higher speeds in the range. When you're panning with the bird, you're helping to overcome some of its speed - when it's coming at you, that goes out the window.

And of course, you need to consider where these speeds put your ISO as well. Generally, when I'm shooting in brighter conditions and all things begin equal, I tend to favor the faster speeds mentioned below. If I'm pushing higher ISOs, I try to get away with the lower shutter speeds - but - with the understanding that my keeper rate may be a touch lower.

All that in mind, here are my shutter speed recommendations for freezing BIF action:

Large Birds (Cranes, Egrets, etc.)

1/1600th ~ 1/3200th

Medium Birds (cormorants, eagles, hawks)

1/2000th ~ 1/4000th

Smaller birds (songbirds)

1/3200th ~ 1/8000th

Of course, it's possible to get sharp images at speeds slower than these (and I have quite often), but these speeds tend to be pretty "safe" if you just want a nice, sharp image.

By the way, my favorite shutter speed for most BIF action is 1/3200th. Seems to work well in most situations.
Very helpful.
 
I get questions all the time about the "best" shutter speeds for bird in flight (BIF) photography, so I thought I'd talk about that a little with this post.

First, there's no perfect BIF speed (although, 1/3200 comes close). I have shots from 1/20th all the way to 1/8000th. It just depends on the bird and what I'm trying to accomplish. For this post, we'll just look at speeds for freezing the action.

The speed you pick depends on the speed of the bird. I'm going to do this by size since larger birds are generally slower than smaller birds. However, there are a couple notes...

1. If there's a heavy wind and the bird is flying into it, you can generally drop these speeds at stop (or more) if you need to. If the bird has his back to a brisk wind though, you will likely need another stop faster than what I'm recommending below (or as close as you can get). (In short, it's all about the bird's "ground speed".)

2. If a bird is flying towards you, that's another time you generally want a bit more speed than the estimates below - or at least stick to the higher speeds in the range. When you're panning with the bird, you're helping to overcome some of its speed - when it's coming at you, that goes out the window.

And of course, you need to consider where these speeds put your ISO as well. Generally, when I'm shooting in brighter conditions and all things begin equal, I tend to favor the faster speeds mentioned below. If I'm pushing higher ISOs, I try to get away with the lower shutter speeds - but - with the understanding that my keeper rate may be a touch lower.

All that in mind, here are my shutter speed recommendations for freezing BIF action:

Large Birds (Cranes, Egrets, etc.)

1/1600th ~ 1/3200th

Medium Birds (cormorants, eagles, hawks)

1/2000th ~ 1/4000th

Smaller birds (songbirds)

1/3200th ~ 1/8000th

Of course, it's possible to get sharp images at speeds slower than these (and I have quite often), but these speeds tend to be pretty "safe" if you just want a nice, sharp image.

By the way, my favorite shutter speed for most BIF action is 1/3200th. Seems to work well in most situations.
Thanks Steve.
 
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