Tree Swallows Hunting

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DRwyoming

DRwyoming

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Spent some time down at a local pond trying to follow the chaos of tree swallows hunting insects and came up with some shots like these:

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these are extraordinary images! Not only you got them in flight but you kept in mind to have their reflection and you got it great! just wow! (y) (y)
but you don't have EXIF I assume it was 1/3200sec? or 1/4000?
 
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bronaldo said:
Absurdly good
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Ibrahim said:
Wish I could do that. Enjoyed seeing your images.
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Ralph said:
Great set Dave! Really like that last one👍👍👍
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MorganP said:
All of them would make a nice print.
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Prashant Prakash said:
What a beautiful set!! Just seeing the images is fun..wonder hiw good was the experience!!✨✨
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Rassie said:
Fantastic work, Dave. Wow, I would love to emulate that! (y)
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Thanks so much for the kind words folks and thanks for taking a look!
 
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ElenaH said:
these are extraordinary images! Not only you got them in flight but you kept in mind to have their reflection and you got it great! just wow! (y) (y)
but you don't have EXIF I assume it was 1/3200sec? or 1/4000?
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Thank you.

Most of these were shot at 1/5000" with a few at 1/4000", I started the session trying to shoot at 1/2500" and saw more motion blur than I liked on my first few captures when zoomed into 100% so I bumped up the shutter speed as light allowed.
 
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eft said:
Wouldn't your Z8 PF500 combo serve the purpose?
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I guess it would, provided my camera handling is up to the task. I suspect this scenario would be physically challenging since I’m not so young and agile anymore. I am going to give it the old college try, though. 🙂
 
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Rassie said:
I guess it would, provided my camera handling is up to the task. I suspect this scenario would be physically challenging since I’m not so young and agile anymore. I am going to give it the old college try, though. 🙂
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The hardest part is keeping them in the viewfinder as they swerve and dart around.

FWIW, the best luck I've had with any camera is to find a water channel where there's some kind of insect hatch and the birds are constantly flying up the water way to pick off the bugs. It can be infuriating as you get one coming at you and just as you grab focus it swerves like a jet fighter right out of your viewfinder but if you stick with it and there's a lot of them flying around some will cooperate.

For the panning shots I have to keep reminding myself to 'lead, don't follow' if I try to pan with these little rockets the way I might for an Eagle or Sandhill Crane if I get them at all it's just as they near the edge of the frame. So I've been working on panning faster and trying to keep slightly ahead of their flight which works better but is hard to remember as it's not at all how I pan for larger birds.
 
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