Swallow landing

Gallery: AvianPosted May 11, 2011916 views21 comments

Here is another from my current "Swallows in flight" project.

Having spent a considerable number of hours now working with these Swallows I am starting to recognise some of their preferred flight paths and landing styles. They occasionally do a circular route, around their chosen landing point, before actually coming in to land. Having realised this behaviour towards the end of a session I decided to concentrate on landing images the next day. What I hadn’t bargained for was a total change in wind direction over the two days. The birds were now landing with their backs towards me which was useless photographically.

At my next visit however, the wind direction was far more favourable and enabled this image to be recorded.

If you would like to see more images from this project then please click
HERE

Canon 1DMK4, 800mm, f10, 1/2000, ISO1250

C&C welcome.

Cheers

Austin

Comments

21 comments

Comment posted by David Sparks on May 11, 2011 at 5:11 PM

Austin:
This looks very, very good to me. I really like the landing pose and the way you framed the bird and the soon-to-be perch. The excellent wing position does not obscure the body or generate a shadow that does so. Good exposure of the dark areas of the head and nice catch light. Tail position and BG are terrific too.

Registered on May 26, 2007, 290 Posts, 4270 Comments

Comment posted by David E Lester on May 11, 2011 at 7:48 PM

Great detail, exposure, comp....action, nice!!!

Registered on March 24, 2010, 155 Posts, 793 Comments

Comment posted by Luke Ormand on May 11, 2011 at 7:51 PM

I'm working on a similar project with Eastern kingbirds. Of course I don't have the benefit of an 800mm lens! But I know how hard it is and this is an exceptional image especially with how sharp the whole body is. The noise control on the body helps a lot with the high ISO because the only other way to get that DOF and SS would be use of flash which is a whole 'nother monster.

Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments

Comment posted by Terry Sohl on May 11, 2011 at 8:15 PM

Beautiful Austin, this really looks great on the large version. Love the extended feet.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 513 Posts, 6889 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Jenkins on May 11, 2011 at 8:16 PM

These birds are very fast, so to get a great photo like this is remarkable. Great shot!

Registered on April 20, 2008, 307 Posts, 604 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on May 11, 2011 at 9:53 PM

Having spent several hours on several occasions trying to get one decent photo of a swallow in flight and not succeeding, I can attest to how difficult this is to accomplish. Very well done. Obviously, I need to spend many more hours and hve a lot of luck. I do have the swallows but they don't seem to be as predictable as yours...

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Harry Harris on May 11, 2011 at 10:04 PM

Austin you are blowing me away with these images. I know how hard it is to capture these little fellows in flight. I like the composition with the target perch on the right and the swallow heading for it.

Registered on August 2, 2010, 169 Posts, 741 Comments

Comment posted by Ken Archer on May 12, 2011 at 12:37 AM

Great Catch Austin

Your persistence is paying off beautifully. Excellent fearther detail, but I especially like the tail and streched out toes.

Ken Archer

Registered on October 28, 2004, 222 Posts, 6683 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on May 12, 2011 at 3:13 AM

Fantastic landing pose and background Austin. Did you manually focus on the perch here?

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by keith mitchell on May 12, 2011 at 3:17 AM

Austin these shots of Your Swallow project are just excellent.

Keith.

Registered on July 12, 2008, 127 Posts, 1735 Comments

Comment posted by Jagdeep Rajput on May 12, 2011 at 8:04 AM

Terrific details and action !
Jagdeep Rajput

Registered on April 29, 2008, 686 Posts, 2857 Comments

Comment posted by Soubhik Patranabis on May 12, 2011 at 10:25 AM

Beautiful background and great action pic of a small bird in flight

Registered on January 25, 2010, 54 Posts, 610 Comments

Comment posted by Luca Mussato on May 12, 2011 at 4:38 PM

very good, very good. I like it.

Luca

Registered on November 14, 2006, 118 Posts, 855 Comments

Comment posted by May Haga on May 12, 2011 at 6:26 PM

Wonderfully captured action Austin.
May

Registered on February 22, 2007, 714 Posts, 8470 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on May 12, 2011 at 9:57 PM

Great job, Austin. I have a lot of swallows and still haven't managed a decent flight shot of any kind.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Austin Thomas on May 14, 2011 at 3:13 AM

Hi all.

Thanks for you kind comments and feedback, much appreciated.

@Nate I tried lots of different methods, adjusted custom settings and played around with focus points in the camera a lot when these images were recorded. I did try focussing on the perch in MF mode and also pre focussing on the perch in AF mode. It is difficult to conclude which method was best as both produced an occassional good and lots of bad results.

Thanks for your interest.

Austin

Registered on March 7, 2008, 45 Posts, 207 Comments

Comment posted by Lucy Aron on May 15, 2011 at 7:33 PM

Amazing catch with that shutter setting. I know how fast these birds move. Like the branch in foreground that breaks up the green.

lucy

Registered on February 25, 2011, 189 Posts, 1160 Comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on May 18, 2011 at 7:45 PM

Congrats on the WP!~
Very fine image - great pose and BG.
Sandy

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Harshad Barve on May 19, 2011 at 8:50 AM

Ridiculously beautiful

Registered on July 25, 2010, 39 Posts, 210 Comments

Comment posted by Simon Bennett on May 19, 2011 at 11:22 PM

Excellent!!

Registered on February 4, 2007, 350 Posts, 4614 Comments

Comment posted by Andy Shepherd on May 22, 2011 at 10:44 AM

Big congrats on the EWP Austin, it's such a good image

Andy...

Registered on September 24, 2006, 123 Posts, 1254 Comments