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nmoens said:
Those are great! what focus point setting did you use for swallows in flight?... I always come home with 1000 pictures and 1 or maybe 2 that are useable:cry: (if I am lucky) my experience has been that with a small focus point is very difficult to maintain the subject in it when they fly that fast, and with a larger area, any background seems to catch the focus and I lose the focus on the small bird...
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Thanks.

I used Group AF Area for both the D5 and D500 for those shots. A few jumped to the background but most stayed on the Swallows. I tried a few with my Z6 II in Wide(small) AF Area mode to see if I could do it (motivated by @Rassie's excellent Z6 II Swallow in flight image) and though it wasn't as reliable as the DSLRs it worked pretty well. I found when the birds got right down to the water to feed the Z6 II AF system was more likely to jump to the water than the DSLRs but when the birds were a bit higher it worked fine.

Here's one from the Z6 II

600mm f/4 + TC-14 iii, f/6.3, 1/3200", ISO 2200
Z62_6450--20210514-Edit-2.jpg
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gaknott said:
Osprey with fresh catch, taken a couple weeks ago on Shoal Creek near Killen, AL. A lot of BIF opportunities from a boat if you can deal with the waves.
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I did not appreciate how difficult it is to shoot from a boat until I first tried it three years ago. I still haven't mastered it, but I think I may be getting better at it. As long as the waves aren't too big and the boat isn't moving too fast. Combine those two, though, and it's time to sit down and hold on to the boat with one hand and your gear with the other!
 
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And I was shooting a gripped D850 at 9 FPS and the action was still too fast to capture the bird's talons as they hit the water. Some people make it seem easy, but it's a whole lot harder than they make it look.

The Attack-1.jpg
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DRwyoming said:
Thanks.

I used Group AF Area for both the D5 and D500 for those shots. A few jumped to the background but most stayed on the Swallows. I tried a few with my Z6 II in Wide(small) AF Area mode to see if I could do it (motivated by @Rassie's excellent Z6 II Swallow in flight image) and though it wasn't as reliable as the DSLRs it worked pretty well. I found when the birds got right down to the water to feed the Z6 II AF system was more likely to jump to the water than the DSLRs but when the birds were a bit higher it worked fine.

Here's one from the Z6 II

600mm f/4 + TC-14 iii, f/6.3, 1/3200", ISO 2200
View attachment 19089
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Maybe it's me but I find that group AF on the D850 misses more shots than the d9 or d25 focus area... but I cannot keep a swallow in the d9:(
 
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nmoens said:
Maybe it's me but I find that group AF on the D850 misses more shots than the d9 or d25 focus area... but I cannot keep a swallow in the d9:(
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I'd agree that Group AF misses more often than D9 and hard to say with D25 but if I can't keep the swallow in the D9 area (and I generally can't) I'll use Group. It certainly doesn't work 100% of the time but I'd say it works about 80% of the time on fast moving, erratic birds.
 
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Have been seeing a lot of Tree Swallows but was happy to see this Barn Swallow out hunting on a local pond. I love their colors and that great forked tail.

Nikon D5, 600mm f/4 @ f/4.5, 1/2000", ISO 720
D51_1459--20210514-Webpost.jpg
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bsinc1962 said:
White-Faced Ibis
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Great Ibis shot Bill. I shot some flight shots of them here this morning but it's hard to get the light on them for more than a silhouette, great job bringing out the colors and getting them against the forest background. Really nice!
 
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DRwyoming said:
Great Ibis shot Bill. I shot some flight shots of them here this morning but it's hard to get the light on them for more than a silhouette, great job bringing out the colors and getting them against the forest background. Really nice!
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Thanks Dave. They circled around a couple of times. The ones against just the sky were just silhouettes like you said.
 
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I was photographing shorebirds this morning when I noticed a large shadow. Snapped my neck to get this shot. Ospreys are usually in my area in the summer. Isn't perfect, would have loved to not clip his wings but I had about 1 second.
osprey.jpg
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