Canada Goose and birds in flight

Normally a group of birds or even a solitary bird in flight with just blue sky around the subject is considered 'bad form' in photography. There is no composition, no interesting background etc. etc. etc. But, if you don't practice taking pictures of all kinds of birds in flight, or standing still against any type of background, you will most likely fail to get a good shot when it counts. I agree that that this kind of picture is boring, the composition is lacking, and not worth printing. I provide examples of birds in flight below. The goose is in almost perfect focus while the flock of Canada geese may appear to be in good focus, but it really isn't. If you don't magnify the picture of the flock of geese in flight, it doesn't look too bad.

Taking pictures of birds or other animals when they aren't moving seems rather easy, but I can tell you it's not. Getting the shot in perfect focus, with the proper exposure (not too dark, not too light), the right background (not sitting on a post for instance), the background having the right amount of bokeh (blurring), and not having noise (graininess), is all pretty difficult. True enough you can aim your phone or a point-and-shoot camera and snap any photo, but the resulting image will most likely not meet the exacting standards professional photographers have, as this bar is set pretty high. When the birds are in flight, you see them, raise your camera, try and focus, and snap the picture. The amount of time you have is very minimal though, to get a good shot, maybe 5 secs at most. Trying to capture a single bird in flight against a blue sky is very difficult because you're looking through the viewfinder for a single dot, in most cases. I saw the eagle the other day, a bird I do not have any pictures of in flight. He took off and I started taking pictures; my camera had the proper settings: but the bird is moving, you are moving your camera to locate the bird, everything is moving, and boom the eagle is gone. My pictures are blurry. Practice, practice, practice. I say all of this as it helps to understand that when you look at a photograph of an animal or bird moving/in flight, at an art show for instance, please realize it took a tremendous amount of work to get 'that' shot. 




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