"Phoebe flight 111 light, this is Phoenix International Airport air traffic control. You're cleared for landing on runway 7 right...er...7 left...er right...Oh heck!...Choose one!"

I derive a great deal of satisfaction...and frustration!...from photographing flying birds. However, sometimes I set out to photograph some real challenges! Lately, I've been attempting to photograph songbirds in flight. I began with photographing Yellow-rumped Warblers feeding on flying insects ( see To Catch a Flying Warbler!). I was literally following the warblers in flight through the camera's viewfinder while handholding a 300mm f 4 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter attached. Out of hundreds of exposures, I got but a handful of successes. I decided if I were to make flight shots of smaller and more maneuverable songbirds I would have to change my tactics some...

I needed to find a subject that displays a repetative behavior. Flycatchers often spend many hours foraging from the same perch. This little Say's Phoebe chose a trail marker post on the grounds of the Gilbert Water Ranch, Gilbert, Arizona, USA as a foraging perch. It would have been nice if it had chosen a more natural perch but...hey!...you can't always direct the bird to a perch of your choice. The phoebe would perch on top of the post until he saw a flying insect. The phoebe would dart off the post, capture the insect in mid-flight, and return to the post to resume its vigil. This phoebe turned out to be just the kind of subject for which I was looking!

I backed quite a ways back from the post to make sure I had enough room in the image area to capture the phoebe from any angle as it was landing on the post. My camera and lens of choice for this series was Canon EOS 1D MkII camera fitted with a Canon EF 500mm f 4L IS lens plus Canon EF 1.4x II teleconverter. This let me photograp the phoebe from a tolerable distance so as not to scare the phoebe away from the post. Once I got back far enough, I centered the top of the post in the viewfinder and locked down tight all of the tripod head adjustments.

If you are trying to watch for the landing bird through the viewfinder you will find that to be an exercise in futility! You need to take your head away from the camera to watch for the returming bird. I switched the lens from "autofocus" to "manual focus" and manually focused the lens on a plane about 2/3 of the way from the front edge of the post to the back edge of the post. Leaving the lens on manual focus, I set the camera's exposure control to "manual exposure" and based my exposure on an incident light reading. You need to be sure to set an f stop that allows enough depth of field to cover the back of the post but you also have to have enough shutter speed to adequately freeze some of the bird's movements. I have found the slowest, useable shutter speed to be about 1/640 sec. Higher would be preferable when possible. To gain the f stop/shutter speed combination I needed I selected a higher ISO on the camera. Finally, I set the camera to "continuous" shooting mode, high-speed motordrive.

Once everything was set up, I took my head away from the viewfinder and just watched the phoebe while leaving my right hand on the camera to fire the shutter when necessary. Canon long lens shooters have an advantage with this technique. If the Image Stabilization is turned "on", the IS can greatly reduce the effects of camera/lens shake. Anyhow, as soon as the phoebe left the perch to nab a snack, I would partially depress the shutter button to activate the IS and, when the returning phoebe was about 2' from the post, I would fully depress the shutter button and fire a short series of 4 to 6 images. Not all images were useable. The phoebe can approach the post from all different angles so the number of "throw-aways" are quite high. However, it is a fun and pleasant way to kill a little time out in the field. :)

These images were a lot of fun to make but I have improvements planned for future landing images. The worst element of these images is the large and image-dominating post the phoebe chose for a perch. These images would look much better if the perch were a smaller, natural perch instead. Also, backing up a little further would have helped some, too, to avoid clipping wings and tails. This is a tough one to measure, though. If I back up too far then the bird is so small in the frame that details will be lost when the image is cropped. I'll just have to keep experimenting... :)