The most sought-after bird in Africa by photographers is the beautiful lilac-breasted roller. I photographed this one in Kenya. For years with my medium format film camera, I tried to capture one in flight but failed. Only when I went digital, where cameras had fast frame rates, autofocus, fast shutters, etc. was I able to get shots like this. If you look closely, the wing furthest from the camera is slightly soft. That's because my shutter was 1/2000th of a second instead of my standard 1/3200 for birds in flight. Now that we have post-processing tools like Topaz DeNoise AI to mitigate noise, we don't have to worry about high ISO settings and I'm much more comfortable with choosing super fast shutter speeds. My other settings for this shot were f/13 and 640 ISO, and my focal length was 234mm. It's still not easy to capture these fast-flying birds in flight, but with our modern equipment the odds are now in our favor. On recent photo tours to Africa, everyone in my group gets shots like this one.
0 Comments