Photographing a flying bird coming straight at the camera is very difficult. Holding focus, especially as the bird gets close, becomes extremely tough. Using a long lens, which is essential for bird photography, compounds the problem. It's very difficult for the AF mechanism to follow-focus as the bird fills up the frame, and this is especially true for smaller species that fly so fast. In order for me to get this picture of a blue and gold macaw in Brazil, I switched to manual focus and pre-focused on a point where I assumed the bird would put the brakes on and land on a large branch. Just before the macaw passed through the plane of focus, I started firing. I took this four years ago with a Canon 5D Mark III which shoots 6 frames per second. My settings were 1/1600, f/4, and 3200 ISO. Today, I have the 1Dx Mark II. This would have given me more frames from which to choose because it shoots at 14 fps. I also would have raised the shutter speed to 1/3200, my standard speed for birds in flight now. That would have pushed the ISO to 6400, but with Neat Image software, the noise wouldn't have been an issue.
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