I have been trying and trying to get some inflight pictures of song birds with terrible results and all of the sudden it just seemed to click and I got this along with some other good one's.
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Woodland songbirds are extremely difficult to photograph in flight. I've been at it for years and only recently have I been getting results. Frankly, the equipment was holding me back for the longest time. I bought the Canon 1D Mark III to try to get in the game, it failed utterly because of the focus bug. I then upgraded to the 1D Mark IV and voilá! Success. Nevertheless, it's still very difficult. Some days I'm really "on" and some days not. I have to spend a lot of time getting to know each bird and where they are going to fly. Even at full burst mode, the bird will remain in frame for only 1 frame. Also, at the shutter speeds required for such shots the lens also tends to be wide open, so DOF is very shallow. Frankly, autofocus can barely keep up, even on the 1D Mark IV. So I have resorted to a combination of auto and manual focusing. Where I've had the best results, I composed the shot, went to manual focus, and waited for the bird to fly into the frame. Keep at it. Practice makes perfect.
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