Lapwing

[seaslug]

Tried setting the Panasonic bridge camera as close as I could to Stephen's recommendations.

[Sully]

If it is anything like the plovers here at the moment ... you would have got the shot and then ducked. Ours are a 'bit manic' at the moment.

Wonderful capture of the plover in flight plus a clean background.

[eaglem]

A well balanced shot.

[Ironwood]

A good catch Greg.
The Plovers don't have the finest of reputations around here, but they are only protecting their offspring usually . I saw a pair with their chicks yesterday, near the busy road they had their wings up in the air trying to scare the cars away

[Alan]

Well captured Greg - looks quite soft on my screen though - much of a crop? I can't see the exif

[seaslug]

Probably cropped about 20% I recon. Actually caught the bird in that corner of the frame away from the focus points so I'm not surprised it's a bit soft. I can't get BIF anywhere near as sharp as you and Stephen. Don't think either me or the gear is up to it (Probably both).

I'm a Bit like Isac actually, don't know whether it's worth putting any of my bird shots up when the standard is so high to start with.

This was with the Panasonic FZ300 which has a tiny sensor 12Mp sensor. I'm reasonably pleased with it as a general purpose camera.. and It's what I had on hand.

Panasonic 31mm (Whatever the equivalent is) I think it said 400mm in the viewfinder. F2.8 1/1300 Iso 100

[avkomp]

wonder if the settings change made a difference? if you can take yourself off to the duckpond to practice a bit, you get a feel for it etc.

everyone starts somewhere in a particular endeavour.
park cricketers dont get to play for australia right off, have to work at it, etc
you dont become an expert at photography overnight either, is there such a thing?)
but if you dont post pix or try to use settings etc on posted pix, you dont look to improve.

I can tell you that I saw pix posted years ago and you think along similar lines, but they you start thinking that it aint magic. if they are doing it I can too.
so you start looking at settings, time of day etc and get a feel for how they did it, they you start seeing that your pix improve.

the lapwing not look sharp to me either. not seeing much in the way of shadows etc so it suggests that the light wasnt your friend.

f2.8 is probably not your friend either. no DOF so even if you nail focus on the eye, you may not have front to back sharpness

1/1300 probably not your friend either. depending on magnification of the lens etc you might find that this wont freeze the wings of smaller birds. maybe ok for this one
turning up iso to even 200 gives you 1/2600 under the same conditions

the 3/4 crossing shot like this on probably requires the most practice to pull off. you are panning a bit, the subject is coming closer too so 3 dimensions at play.
is the shot I can miss if not practiced for a while.

the full crossing shot is probably the easiest to get under most circumstances as the range is almost constant and the af (even dud af) has no particular problems keeping.
all you need to do is pan the lens evenly and keep panning after shooting.. the trick is to keep it smooth and the subject in a constant spot in the viewfinder.
helps everything you do, sports, nature etc

[Alan]

I don't even have a photo of a lapwing in flight

I was also reluctant to put my bird photos up on an Aus Bird Forum. I was given very useful feedback there, (if I wanted to conform to an 'unstated' set of expectations and if I provided lots of settings and processing details etc) but it helped me lift my game.

Good glass is pretty much essential, as well as patience, persistence and practice. And you have to know and understand bird behaviour as well, so as to know where to go and what might happen etc.

I'm so glad we have an expert like Stephen back again to help and encourage us mere mortals to achieve something that we are happy to share.

Bird photography is a really hard gig.

Please keep posting