Project two: Creative techniques - Flight training

Mike Harris shows you how to earn your wings by capturing tack-sharp photographs of majestic raptors in flight

- Mike Harris

The Mission

– Capture crisp images of birds in flight

Time

– One hour

Skill level

– Advanced

Kit needed

– 200mm lens or longer

Wildlife photography can be a challenging endeavour, and one of the hardest techniques to master is capturing a bird in flight. Many birds are extremely agile on the wing, which makes them unpredictable and therefore difficult to track.

As with any photographic technique, practice makes perfect, so we visited the Hawk Conservancy Trust, Andover, to hone our snapping skills during their fantastic flying displays. A long lens is a must, but with birds regularly flying close (and sometimes into) the crowd, you don’t need to invest in a big 600mm lens. Anything above 200mm (in 35mm terms) will do and unless you’re taking shots in particularly dark woodland, or at dusk, a fast aperture isn’t a must either. In fact, using a narrower aperture of around f/8 to create a larger depth of field will make it slightly easier to capture your subject in focus.

A shutter speed of 1/1000 sec or faster is a good place to start and we’d recommend shooting in Shutter Priority mode, so your shutter speed will remain constant even if your subject moves in and out of uneven patches of light. The AF Area Mode you choose should be the one that works best for you, but if you’re a dab hand at tracking you may find Single Point AF is the most precise.

Once you’ve mastered the technique you can start refining your flight skills with the various scenarios over the page.