Yesterday at Lake Jesup, a Bald Eagle flew very close to me. I was looking for ducks, loons and grebes sitting in the water at at the time, so I had my camera set for birds sitting still on the water. When shooting still birds, I normally select only the center focusing point and put the focusing mode on “One Shot.”
When shooting birds in flight, I want all the focusing points active with the focusing mode on “AI Servo” to better track birds in flight. It’s a little bit of a pain to switch between these two shooting modes. If you try to shoot the bird in flight with “One Shot” and one focusing point, you’re likely to get a lot of blurry photos. But if you try to change the focusing points and focusing mode, you’re likely to miss the shot all together.
There’s a solution to this problem, though. You can use the Custom Modes. Using custom modes, you just switch the dial on the camera to make all the changes. I use C1 for still birds and C2 for birds and flight. So yesterday when this Bald Eagle flew by, I quickly switched from C1 to C2 while swiveling my camera on its tripod and started shooting. It didn’t cost me any time.
Adult Bald Eagles can also be a little bit of a challenge to photograph, since they have dark bodies and white heads. It’s very easy to overexpose the head or under expose the body and/or wings. And on sunny days, you can also sometimes lose contrast between the white head and a bright sky. But this eagle was pretty nice to me. In the first photo, I had one shot with the eagle’s wing behind it’s head, giving me nice contrast. There’s still shadow under it wings, but I like the shot anyway.
Scott Simmons
Scott Simmons, based in Florida, is a lover of nature, landscape, and wildlife photography. Scott became interested in photography in 2001 when he was given his first SLR camera. When he acquired a telephoto lens, he became progressively more interested in birds and other wildlife. Scott enjoys learning about bird habitats and behavior, striving always to take images that are both beautiful and interpretive. Scott believes photography is a great vehicle to help others to appreciate the wonder for the stuff of earth.
Leave a Reply