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**Isac** · 31-12-2018, 10:03 AM

Hi John. I'd like to see the EXIF data for these shots if you can post up.
#1 is a Pacific Black Duck
#2 is an Egret
#4 looks like a heron either a White Faced or going by the colour of the wings could be a Night Heron.
#6 is a Superb Fairy Wren
#7 is Pacific Black and junior and the dark headed duck could be a crossbreed perhaps Pacific and Mallard.
#8 is a Noisy Miner
Last 2 are just not worth talking about. Yes I did notice the avatar!

**avkomp** · 02-01-2019, 04:06 PM

2 and 3 great egret
4 is a nankeen night heron.
7 is a pair of chestnut teal with the male on the left, female on right. black duck in background
oof looks to be slow shutter speed or missed focus, but need exif to confirm
sometimes the camera likes the background more than the subject.
practice sorts that out mostly. I wrote a BIF tutorial some time back.
I personally use a single AF point mostly or 9 so on the nikon is 51/1 or 51/9
so I have all 51 points selectable and only on active or 9.
that way if you have a good track going and the single point on the target, you get what you want mostly.
I bump focus too to ensure I keep the target sharp.
if you have a limit switch on the lens, make sure you use it, it will make re acquiring the subject quicker if you run off.
manual exposure seems to make a difference too, I believe if I set exposure manually all the camera has to do is focus and shoot. may not be so, but if I believe it helps, it does
nikons have a setting in the menus called focus tracking with lock on too, (canon has it also but cant recall what it called right now)
this can help you too. if you run off the target a bit with a low setting, it will immediately refocus and you get the background, but with say 2-3 on that setting,
it wont immediately try to refocus. another example if you say tracking a BIF and it flies behind a tree or something, you refocus and lose it, but the lockon will keep the AF looking at same range as bird was before the obstruction.

I try to practice my bif with my longest lens, this is harder but makes you more precise. I try to shoot them full frame too or as close as possible which is tougher still,
but like all things, you get better with practice.

if you dont have birds in flight repeatable, a useful drill is to find a spot where cars are going by. so you focus on a point on the car, say a headlight or similar and get a good track going.
you pan along and crack off a burst while still swinging and following thru.
the idea is to get the car in the same place each time in the frame. you should see something like a cartoon where the target is stationary but the background changes.
cock it up, no probs. try again on the next car.
will make you a lot sharper at it in short order

**Ozzie_Traveller** · 02-01-2019, 07:14 PM

G'day GJ

Heaps of stuff I can offer you here mate ...
if you swap that blunderbuss of a cannon for a nikon ... the Coolpix P1000 might "just" have enough long-lens stretch for you

Seriously tho - your bird / BIF results are very similar to mine - a lot of "almost there but not quite good enough"
I quite agree that one of the "150 to 600's" would go down very nicely thank you - but often the $$ is just too great to justify. You may be able to pick up one - or a 100-400 - from any of the well known sites and that might be enough to get you close enough. You certainly have enough pixels to be able to crop down and still retain something pretty decent

Also for myself - I use my DIY monopod [made from a painter's telescopic handle ... see an earlier posting] with a good ball head and it's solid enough for 1000mm of optics, that along with the Red Dot Sight allows me to follow BIF and get some 'reasonable results'

Phil

**avkomp** · 03-01-2019, 08:54 AM

Based on exif, I believe you missed focus. Possibly lens liked the background more. Some tips in the post above may help.

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