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Tips for taking flight shots with the Canon Zoom EF 100-400mm 1:4.5-5.6 L IS Ultrasonic lens.

T he question I am asked most often by other photographers is “how are you able to take so many flight shots?” The answer is with the Canon EF 400mm 1:5.6 L Ultrasonic lens (400mm L). Its 400mm range and very fast auto focus makes it the ideal lens for birds in flight. However it is not the ideal lens for many photographers. Most photographers instead choose a more general purpose lens that can also be used for wildlife, mainly the Canon Zoom EF 100-400mm 1:4.5-5.6 L IS Ultrasonic lens (100-400mm IS). The 100-400mm IS lens is a very good lens for general photography, including wildlife, but it is not the best choice for taking pictures of birds in flight. Don’t be discouraged, with a few tips and some practice you can make some pretty good flight shots with the 100-400mm IS. Like many it’s the first lens I purchased for bird photography, and it’s the lens that I learned from the most. Here are some tips on how to use the 100-400mm IS lens to take pictures of birds in flight.

Ring-billed Gull
Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis Canon 100-400mm @ 180mm f6.3 1/1000s
  1. First find a roosting location where birds gather for the night. Try to find one that contains larger birds like herons, egrets, ibis, or even anhinga. Observe the birds for a while as they fly to and from the roost. This will let you learn their flight path for the day. You’ll want to do this every time because their flight paths will change with the time of the day and the direction of the wind. The more you know about your subject’s behavior patterns the better. A good flight shot is usually about predictability. How well you predict where the bird will fly to, will make the difference between a good shot and a bad one.
  2. Now that you know the flight path of your subject, try to position yourself at a location where the sun is behind you and the birds fly perpendicular to the front of your lens. You generally do not want to take flight shots of birds flying directly toward or away from your lens. Many camera auto focus systems cannot keep up with a moving target that is headed directly towards the camera, and more often then not, such images end up slightly out of focus. The best shots are those where the bird flies across your field of view and you are able to pan across the view with little or no obstructions as you follow the bird. Another good tip to keep in mind if you’re a beginner is that you want a view of the flight path where your background will be mostly blue sky, to keep the camera’s auto focus system from locking on to the background instead of your subject.
  3. Make sure your camera settings are correctly configured for taking action photos. If you have the original Canon Digital Rebel (300D) then all you need to do is set your dial to the sports mode. If you have a more advanced digital camera then the general settings are as follows:
    1. Set your shooting mode to continuous, so that you can hold down the shutter button to continue to take images with your camera’s burst mode.
    2. Set your burst speed to the fastest possible, so that you can take the most amounts of images in the least possible time.
    3. Set your auto focus mode to AI Servo AF. AI Servo AF will let you lock focus on your target and then continue to focus as the subject moves toward or away from the camera while depressing the shutter button half-way.
    4. Set your dial to AV (aperture priority). Setting your camera to AV mode will help ensure that you have enough depth of field to get the whole bird in focus.
    5. Set your aperture to 8.0. An aperture of 8.0 is a good balance between getting the entire subject in focus and maintaining a fast enough shutter speed on a sunny day. You may want to shoot wide open on cloudy days or if the background is dark.
    6. Set your ISO to as high as necessary to achieve a shutter speed of at least 1/1000s. Generally you’ll want to freeze the bird in flight and you’ll probably be handholding the camera and lens, so a shutter speed of 1/1000s makes a good compromise.
    7. Set your camera’s auto focus selection point (AF point) to the center AF point only. By using the center AF point only, you will more likely be able to keep the focus on the moving bird rather then having it lock to the changing background as you pan across your view.
  4. Until now, we haven’t even discussed the lens. That’s because regardless of which lens you will be using, tips 1 to 3 are the basics that you should follow each time you practice shooting birds in flight. Now we’ll get into some specifics on using the Canon 100-400mm IS for flight photography. First lets look at the settings for the lens:
    1. Make sure that your AF/MF switch is set to AF (auto focus). You won’t be able to take many shots of birds in flight in the MF (manual focus) setting.
    2. Set the minimum focus distance on the lens to 6.5m. By limiting the focus distance of the lens, your auto focus will lock on target much faster and will be less prone to hunting for the target. Since the birds will be flying perpendicular to your lens you shouldn’t need to worry about birds flying closer then 6.5m.
    3. Turn the image stabilizer of the lens off. Most people think that the best setting is to leave the image stabilizer on to set it to mode 2 (panning). However the image stabilizer slows down the auto focus system, and faster auto focus is more important then image stabilization, especially at shutter speeds of 1/1000s and faster.
    4. In general you will want to handhold the lens so that it is easier for you to keep the center AF point on the subject and maintain focus. To make hand holding the lens easier, remove the tripod collar or at least rotate it so that the foot is on top of the lens (aligned with the distance scale).
  5. At first it may seem difficult to find the approaching bird in the viewfinder at the 400mm setting. It takes practice to find and track a flying bird. Because the 100-400mm IS is a zoom lens, it has an advantage for photographers learning to track birds in flight from their camera’s viewfinder. That advantage is the rapid push/pull zoom capability of the lens. Set the zoom locking collar to the smooth setting (loose). Pull the zoom all the way back to the 100mm setting. You’ll find it easier to find the bird in the viewfinder and track it, although it will be relatively small in the frame. As you track the bird in the viewfinder, slowly push the zoom out to 400mm. With practice you should be able to easily find the bird at the 100mm setting and then zoom to 400mm and track it with the center AF point. Now if you actually try and take some pictures at this point they may not come out well because there’s a lot of movement going on with the panning motion combined with the zooming motion. That’s okay, the goal is to get used to tracking flying birds in your viewfinder.
  6. When you feel comfortable tracking the birds with the method described above it’s time to move on to the next step.  Lock down your zoom ring by rotating it to the tight setting at 300mm. Sight an approaching bird without the camera and then while keeping your eyes on the bird, move the viewfinder up to your eye and continue following the bird. This method should now be easier if you practiced the spot and zoom method above. Practice until you feel comfortable and then loosen and retighten your focus ring to the 350mm setting. Continue practicing until you’re comfortable with this procedure at 400mm.
  7. Now that you can track the bird, keeping it within the frame of your viewfinder, practice focus locking and tracking your subject. This is best done by pre-focusing the camera. You can pre-focus the camera by picking an object that is at approximately the same distance as the birds that are flying by. Lock focus with the center AF point on to the object. Now when you spot an approaching bird slowly bring up the lens and begin tracking it within the viewfinder. Usually the bird will be at a distance greater then where you had pre-focused and thus the bird will appear blurry in the viewfinder. That’s ok; as the bird comes closer it will soon reach the same distance as the objects you pre-focused on. You will know, because the bird will now appear in focus in the viewfinder. This is the time to make sure that the center AF point is directly over the subject and depress the shutter button half-way to begin tracking the bird with the AI Servo AF. Now this is all a lot easier said then done, because you must be able to do this within a few seconds or you’ll loose the shot. That’s why there’s no substitute for practice, practice, practice.
  8. Alright, finally it’s time to take some pictures. You know what to do. Sight the bird and bring the viewfinder up to your eye. Make sure that the center AF point is directly over your subject. When subject comes into focus in the viewfinder, as it enters the range for which you previously pre-focused the lens on, depress the shutter button half-way and continue to track the subject from within your viewfinder. When you’re ready, press the shutter button all the way down and hold it there to engage the camera’s bust mode. Continue to track the bird from within the viewfinder as the camera continues to take pictures. The result you are looking for is one where the subject takes up most of the frame, is in clear focus, does not have any of its wings clipped by the edge of the frame, and is in flight. If you achieve that once or twice out of the many attempts you will make, then you’re on your way to making some successful flight shots.
  9. This final tip will be about recovering focus. There will be many times when the center AF point will move off the subject or simply fail to lock onto the subject. In such cases the focus will try to lock on the background. When you see this happening, the easiest way to try to recover is by completely letting go of the shutter button, reorienting the center AF point over the subject, and then depressing the shutter button half-way again. This method will let you recover most of the time, but not always.
Swallow-tailed Kite
Swallow-tailed Kite Elanoides forficatus Canon 100-400mm @ 250mm f8 1/1600s

Jay Paredes
BeautyoftheWild.com