Geese in Flight - challenges with multiple geese

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Christina,

If you are using your fixed focal length 300mm and then adding a 1.4 teleconverter how can you avoid clipping the wings if they get too close. You cannot zoom out or change the focal length.

Well I suppose you could try 'run like the wind' away from them

Being serious for a minute ...

Perhaps because of the more 'confined' nature of UK rivers, I have found the 70-300mm lens, which on a D7100 gives an FFE of 105-450/600mm (the latter figure using the 15MP electronic TC - which almost matches your 'fixed' set up) is invaluable when they fly overhead, I have many pictures using much less than full reach, especially if Mute Swans (being somewhat larger than geese) over-fly me. I guess you'll soon get a feel, if you keep going to same place, which other lens(es) you own might be suitable.

[Dave Humphries]

Hello Dave, I was responding to Christina using a 300mm fixed focal length lens. I like you use the 70-300mm but I do not have the ability to go to 600mm with my D7000. I do find zoom lenses and the variable focal length great for being able to adjust to keep the whole bird in the viewfinder without clipping off body parts.

Yes, I realised that Joe - and was hoping to support your point in a light hearted way.

I cannot recall what other telephoto options Christina has, may be only 200mm (300mm FFE), which is certainly a bit short if they start a long way off.

The electronic TC/1.3x crop mode of the D7100 is something I use a lot, but it is not without risks for BiF, I need to remember to switch to DX mode sooner rather than later, or again wing tips go missing because although visible in V/F, I tend not to notice if they 'cross the (1.3 crop) line'.

Cheers,

[Brownbear]

Joe

Yes, clipping is hard to avoid when they get close and I figure I need to work on my timing but yes, I am missing my zoom lens and as soon as I can afford another lens I will get a zoom one.

Thanks for sharing... That's far beyond my budget... I managed to fit in some time for a few photos this morning and I tried shutter speeds of 800-1000, definitely hard to do and definitely a lot of missed shots. If any of them turned out I will post a photo one at a low shutter speed and one at a high shutter speed and see if people can tell the difference.

I learned about the impossible yesterday morning. There was an adorable little bird perched on the pier and at a SS of 20, iso of 3200 and Aperture 4, and exposure compensation, I saw that it was impossible to get the shot unless I went to mega iso... So good to know.

Richard... LOL I could use a goose whistle, actually any kind of bird whistle would be great.

Dave... Thank you for sharing... My other lens is a 28-200 mm lens and too short... But yes one day I will purchase another lens.

[Brownbear]

Following are some geese in flight shots from this morning which I photographed with a shutter speed of 800 - 1000. I had a lot of blurry images, far more than usual, but I think I managed a few decent shots which was a surprise to me. It seems that whether I use a slow or a fast shutter speed I still have trouble grabbing focus on the heads, ie; most of the heads are still not in sharp focus.

I have mixed up today's images (SS of 800 for the majority and one at 1000) with a few from last week photographed at shutter speeds of 1600, 2000, and 2500.

I would like to know if folks can pick out the images that were photographed with a slow shutter speed, they should be the least sharp and/or blurry.

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Thank you.


Note for Dave... I learned today that the Bird of Prey sanctuary is closed until next summer so I will have to keep practicing on whatever birds I can find, but thank you for the thoughtful suggestion.

[rpcrowe]

Actually, there are Goose and Duck calls available... I have no experience with them. Hunters are the ones who usually make use of them and I don't hunt (except ocasionally with a camera)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EoHfv2uRMw

I have successfully called elk during their rut in New Mexico and it is quite thrilling to have a wild creature attracted by a noise you are making.

Geese are actually also attracted to decoys and if I remember my Wildlife 101 correctly are attracted to less realistic decoys than are needed for ducks. In New Mexico hunters decoyed snow geese by knotting one corner of a white plastic kitchen trash bag stuffed with newspaper. I think that duck decoys have to be more realistic. Geese can also be decoyed by waving a white flag. I don't think that geese are the rocket scientists of water fowl...

Instructions

Open the bag up and set a wadded up piece of newspaper in one corner. Twist the bag around twice, holding the corner in place. This will form the head. An ideal size for the head should be just less than the size of your fist.
Tie off the corner using a garbage bag wire tie, then paint an orange stripe on the corner using a 1/2-inch-wide paintbrush.
Fill the rest of the bag with newspaper until the bag becomes about the size of a regulation NFL football, then twist the bag and tie off the end using a plastic wire tie.
Make about two dozen of these decoys, then take them out to your favorite spot and stake them to the ground using available sticks. An ideal stick to use would be about 10 inches long. Drive the stick into the ground until its about 3 inches deep, then set the decoy body on top of the stick and push down until it punctures the bag and holds it in place. Ensure that the orange stripe is facing up.

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_6373019_home...#ixzz2g48ngubL

[Stagecoach]

Hi Christina,

Here's a couple of things I have just thought of which you may want to consider;

a) Is focusing on the head which is pretty small your best option? I would suspect that with the aperture you are using and the DoF it is giving you focusing on the body is going to give a larger target area and the head will still be well in focus.

b) As for freezing movement with shutter speed the fastest movement of the wings is going to be somewhere between their upper and lower limits of movement. At the extremities of movement they are basically stopped as they change direction.

No 1 I would suggest was taken at a lower shutter speed, but I would certainly not place a bet on that.

As for this series they sure are getting better !

Grahame

[jcuknz]

Not sure how phase detection works but with contrast detection I would have no problems getting a focus off the water or else turn around and focus on a spot behind you at something the distance you are going to press the trigger when the birds arrive.

[Brownbear]

Richard,
At long last you have shared something that I am actually capable of building... I am going to try one or two, but not two dozen as the pier is in the city and expect that I might get in some trouble for setting up 24 of them... One or two I might get away with. Thanks for sharing.

Grahame,

Thanks for the tips. I guess I try for the eye because when I see photos where the birds eye is in gorgeous clear focus I think they are just wonderful. But for now I will just manage the best I can.

Thank you for your guess. I am not going to reveal which ones I used the slow shutter speed with until I have a few more responses, as this is the only way I will be able to figure out if I managed to do it well, or not.

Photo Nut,

Yes, indeed. Yesterday, I tried focusing on the water and it does work when the water is choppy, but even though I can see the geese coming, predicting where they are going to fly or land or take off from the water is too hard. Nevertheless I will try it on some other type of shot. Thank you for sharing that.

[rpcrowe]

Christina,

If you Google "Plastic Bag" goose decoys, I think that they use black bag decoys to attract Canadian geese. But, if there are other geese around, the white bags will also attract the Canadians because they will thing that these bags are snow geese...

What a difference in intellect between these birds and crows (or course I am partial). The crows are extremely hard to fool...

[Brownbear]

Hi Grahame,

It looks like no one is inclined to guess, and I would like to learn if using a slower shutter speed with panning is a good option for me to explore (assuming that my panning skills will improve with time) as a slower shutter speed allows me to use a lower iso and a smaller aperture.

Yes, image 1 was shot at 800 as was image 5

Image 4 SS 1000

Image 9 SS 2500

All the rest... SS 1600

Does image 9 appear to be the sharpest and way better than image 1?

Thank you.

Hi Christina,

Here's a couple of things I have just thought of which you may want to consider;

a) Is focusing on the head which is pretty small your best option? I would suspect that with the aperture you are using and the DoF it is giving you focusing on the body is going to give a larger target area and the head will still be well in focus.

b) As for freezing movement with shutter speed the fastest movement of the wings is going to be somewhere between their upper and lower limits of movement. At the extremities of movement they are basically stopped as they change direction.

No 1 I would suggest was taken at a lower shutter speed, but I would certainly not place a bet on that.

As for this series they sure are getting better !

Grahame

[Mr Foreman]

Shooting fast flying objects head on is a nightmare though a fun challenge. Regardless of the soft focus they are really nice shots.

[Mr Foreman]

Amongst the many problems associated with your project I found lens quality is a factor also. I have a standard canon 70-300mm lens with image stabilization and a canon 100mm - 400mm lens IS. The second is far more expensive but the quality difference is massive. The cheaper lens never really produces sharp images especially at full focal length.

[Brownbear]

Hi Mr. Foreman,

Thank you. Yes, I'm trying to get a head on shot of a goose in flight in sharp focus and struggling... I just realized that mid-way through this thread I changed my experiment to using slower shutter speeds.

I do have a great lens (Nikon 300 mm) which I used for this shots with an extendor attached, so it is not my lens that is resulting in my soft focus, but my focusing skills which I am working on.... Sometimes I manage it well and other times just so-so... so just more practice is needed. My lens does not have IS but my understanding is that IS is not important at long focal lengths.