{"id":18323,"date":"2013-09-11T04:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T10:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=18323"},"modified":"2013-09-08T18:47:20","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T00:47:20","slug":"cliff-swallow-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/11\/cliff-swallow-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Cliff Swallow In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years I tried to photograph swallows in flight, usually without much strategy – just shooting them\u00a0wherever I might find them.\u00a0 That\u00a0typically meant while they were freely flying overhead or buzzing the surface of a pond or stream as they picked off insects and it always<\/em> meant failure on my part.\u00a0 They’re just\u00a0too\u00a0fast, too small and too maneuverable for my autofocus and reflexes.<\/p>\n

Then\u00a0one\u00a0day I decided to\u00a0change strategies and shoot them as\u00a0they were buzzing around their mud nests at a bird refuge pavilion.\u00a0 As they flew around\u00a0their nests I was finally get a few (very few) sharp and detailed shots but I’d waited too long in the day – the sun was just high enough that\u00a0the undersides of the birds were nearly always\u00a0in shade.<\/p>\n

Time to fine-tune my strategy.<\/p>\n

So the next time I made it a point to be there at sunrise on a bright, clear morning.\u00a0 What a difference an hour or so made!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"cliff<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 500 f\/4, natural light, part of nest and building cloned out<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The sun was low enough that\u00a0the ventral surface of the birds wasn’t shaded\u00a0and there was just enough light to get the shutter speed I needed.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, the shooting was still tough.\u00a0 I probably shot about 600 images that morning and kept 16\u00a0– some of them marginal.<\/p>\n

But it was a vast improvement\u00a0over my previous, dismal\u00a0track record with swallows in flight.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 I’m delighted to be “on the road” again – it’s been a\u00a0very\u00a0long time between camping trips!\u00a0 As per usual I won’t be able to respond to comments for a few days (extremely spotty phone signal and no computer)\u00a0but I do get your comments via email on my phone and enjoy them very much.\u00a0 Hope to have some interesting shots to share when we get back!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years I tried to photograph swallows in flight, usually without much strategy – just shooting them wherever I might find them. That typically meant while they were freely flying overhead or buzzing the surface of a pond or stream as they picked off insects and it always meant failure on my part. They’re just too fast, too small and too maneuverable for my autofocus and reflexes.<\/p>\n

Then one day I decided to change strategies… <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[338,6,334,1320],"tags":[542,146,228,544],"class_list":["post-18323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-swallows","tag-cliff-swallow","tag-flight","tag-nest","tag-petrochelidon-pyrrhonota"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/cliff-swallow-0203b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-4Lx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}