Tree Creeper

[kimw]

New to this bird stuff... Any advice appreciated.

I can see the trees in sharp but the birds not, however the birds only about 2 -3 inches from the tree.
200-400mm 5.6 lens
Focus Tracking..... centre weighted .
Not at the limit of lens .

Should I be stopping down to about F8 and losing some of the the background blur ?

[peterr]

Did you use a single centre focussing point? My guess is that the focus point was slightly misaligned with the bird and locked onto the tree. Same has happened to me on numerous occasions. I find it easiest if I use back button autofocussing with the camera set on continuous AF, and then I can take my thumb on and off the focussing button separately from composing and panning the camera to follow the bird in flight. I don't think F8 would be enough to keep both the bird and tree in focus.

[Malcolmp]

Hi mate,
Mainly because I've never had a camera with good tracking auto focus, I would pre focus in manual about 8" infront of the tree hole and set it on motor drive and gun it when it appears.
The bird is likely to fly into the area of focus at some point and I would stop down to f8 at least. Your tree is a long way infront of the green/shrubbery background and will still be blurred enough and then selective p/p will make it pop more.
But like I said I've not got a good auto focus system capable of locking on in that situation. I'm no birder so what do I know
Malc

[kimw]

Thanks both,
Looking into using the focus wrap , raining today so didn`t go out....wallpapering
No way can i track these little missiles in flight ...they must be one of the smallest ,fastest birds on the planet.
I`ll post some more results when i get them.

[IanT]

I doubt that focus-tracking on anything other than the new Sony kit will catch this type of shot. Malcolm's suggestion is the best: manual focus; focus on the tree then wind it back a bit to put the f-plane a foot in front, high ISO, high shutter speed, f/8 or f/11, hit the button on continuous drive when you see the bird land...

[peterr]

Well with a small bird like this you are actually on a bit of a hiding to nothing. I have tried Malcolm's technique with small birds in flight, but with virtually zero success. Going through the maths, I think I can see why. Assuming that you are 4m away from the tree and shooting at F8 at 350mm focal length on FF, then you will have a depth of field of approximately 60mm. Assume that the bird is moving towards you at about 5mph (probably a low estimate) then this is more than 2m/s. Assume you prefocus just in front of the tree on the path the bird will fly and your camera has a max burst rate of 8fps, then you will get one frame every 0.125s. In the time between frames the bird will therefore move 250mm, which is more than four times more than your depth of field, so it will be through luck more than anything else to get it all in focus. Of course if you have a camera with a much higher burst rate, then your chances will be improved, but going to F11 will only give you about 85mm DoF, so you are still going to struggle.

[billf]

That is an impressive bit of maths, no wonder you can't catch the little blighter!

[kimw]

Went to the same place today and after 1 ½ hrs only saw the one bird once.Nice and peaceful .
The birds must of finished building the nest and started nesting... however a deer did very briefly appear behind me....there it was ,then gone...
Thanks for the maths lesson, knew i was trying the next to impossible..but nows a good time to learn how to Auto focus using the camera settings ....There,s a lot going on inside the camera that I`ve never used...