THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

Dan Mold takes a budding bird photographer to a falconry centre for a crash course in capturing photos of birds of prey in flight and engaging avian portraits

- Dan Mold

PRO DAN MOLD

CAMERA: CANON EOS-1D X MK III

Photoplus technique editor and Photography Week contributor Dan has been a semi-pro for more than five years, and writing for photo mags for the best part of a decade. He’s shot many subjects, but wildlife is the genre he likes shooting most, whether it’s in his garden, local bird hide, deer park, or in the wild.

APPRENTICE

CHRIS VINES

CAMERA: CANON EOS 760D

Chris is an enthusiast photographer who loves to shoot birds of all types. He’s keen to improve his technique and master his camera settings to help him capture sharp images of birds in flight, so we arranged a photoshoot the West of England Falconry centre near Bath.

TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT

Before they headed out for their shoot, Dan talked Chris through a few key camera settings to ensure he was ready to capture shots of birds in flight

APERTURE MODE

Dan advised Chris to select Aperture Priority mode (Av on the mode dial), and then open the aperture all the way to let in as much light as possible and achieve faster shutter speeds – an aperture value of f/2.8 is ideal. Don’t worry if your lens doesn’t open this wide: you’ll just need to increase the ISO a bit until you get a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec or faster, so your images might be a little noisy.