Bird-in-flight photography is one of my passions, and I'm happy to share a few tips that might help you improve your game. Just as this gorgeous Osprey came up with empty talons when fishing the trout-filled water of the Toccoa River, I often come up empty-handed when attempting to capture birds in flight with my camera. Only with a great deal of patience, practice, and luck does the Osprey succeed in grabbing an evening meal, and so too is the same type of perseverance required of the photographer to get a shot that does the subject matter justice.
These images were captured with my full-frame Nikon D750 paired with my go-to wildlife lens, a Tamron 70-200mm F2.8. I almost always photograph birds in flight using Shutter Priority at 1/2500th of a second or faster, Auto ISO, and dynamic tracking autofocus. Hard sunlight on the subject is almost always preferred to minimize the graininess that accompanies high ISO. In this sequence, I was fortunate that the bird flew relatively close to me after catching the fish so that even though the ISO was higher, I didn't have to crop as much, therefore keeping the grain to an acceptable level.
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