Swallow action

[Normcar]

Darrell's "action" shots inspired me to post some Swallow photos that I took the other day. It was feeding time and it was a back and forth business, fun to watch.

Screeching stop





Out for more...





Making a shape that follows bokeh

[photosbyvito]

very nice action....but they don't seem as sharp as possible (or as some other shots you've posted)...wat was your shutter? i think it might be easiest to lock the focus right there....and then you can just snap away....

Vito

[geoffs]

Haha - those pictures look pretty sharp to me - at least for the amount of action being frozen in them. At the risk of sounding like I'm too easily pleased, it would make me very happy if any pictures I took of birds with my equipment came even a tenth as close to the quality of these...

Oh yeah - for anyone viewing these pictures that doesn't know what kind of swallows these are, they appear to be male and female tree swallows...

[Darrell1]

I really like #3. Those little guys move SO fast, it is quite difficult to stop the action of the wings. I just cannot seem to get my shutter speed fast enough, without increasing my ISO (and increasing the grain).

The cameras we all use today are incredible, but I want to shoot at 1/1000th, f8, 100 iso! :-) Is that asking a bit much?? :O

[geoffs]

Darrell1 wrote:

The cameras we all use today are incredible, but I want to shoot at 1/1000th, f8, 100 iso! :-) Is that asking a bit much?? :O

Sounds like a reasonable request to me. :-)

At the rate of advance of technology, I'm sure it won't be but a few more years before CCD/CMOS technology is where you want it. The price might not be where you want it though...

[ohenry]

Darrell1 wrote:

The cameras we all use today are incredible, but I want to shoot at 1/1000th, f8, 100 iso! :-) Is that asking a bit much?? :O

Only if we want to rewrite the exposure laws....or you want to use a light source that far exceeds the sunny f16 rule. Digital ISO is a meaningless term in actuality. What you're more concerned with is the amount of noise at the camera's various "ISO" settings. I'm confident that technology will improve that noise level so that you can use an ISO of 1000 noise free to allow you to shoot f/8 at 1/1000th.

:|

[mrkryz]

Clean iso 1000? I cant wait ... I'll finally be able to get rid of my 1 million candle power spotlight-flash lol

[Normcar]

Thanks guys

style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #000000"Vito's absolutely correct, that's why I wasn't planning to post at first. I used a teleconverter on these ones to get up close and dirty so the purity of the lens is somewhat reduced on these. However, an increased shutter would definitely not hurt as well as a clearer day.

[zoomn]

Norm great action shots. My favorite is the first one, skidding halt.

I am at averyearly stage in my photo taking development as far as getting perfect pictures and am alsosomewhat equipment challenged compared to many of you here.

At this point I really enjoy trying to get "the shot", ie: composition, action, colors, setting. The ability to get that perfect definition, detail and color is beyond my capability at this point but I very much enjoy seeing the examples here of such work.

Pictures like Norm has posted here and the action shots Darrel posted in his post, while maybe not being technically perfect with detail, exposure, etc, are none the less excellent photos andI applaud theskill, work and creativity that went into getting such great shots.

Thanks for posting these shots Norm, even though you didn't feel they were your best work. Sometimes it shouldjust be about "the shot". And you definitely got a couple ones here.