P#27: The Power and Speed of Birds in Flight Captured in a Photograph

Pan and Crop

Brenda Tharp: This picture of the birds in flight is a perfect example of panning with your subject and using a slow enough shutter speed so that you get a more expressive result. (click the image for a larger version)

If I panned with a faster shutter speed, the birds' wings would all be pretty much frozen in position, but by using a slow shutter speed, in this case a half a second, I was able to create an almost transparent effect of their wings because the wings were flapping. Part of them I've got registered clearly and part of them are semitransparent and ghosting.

The end result was a much more interpretive, expressive picture of them flying low and fast. Then I got the added bonus of having a hint of reflection because by panning I've made the water blur. Although water is moving it was not moving at this speed. I'm moving across the surface of the water.

I also liked that I was able to get their shadows, which would have been their reflections if I had done this with 1/500th of a second. By panning on it, I was able to create just a hint of shadow underneath each of the birds in flight, which was cool.

I cropped this photograph as a panorama because I felt that it accentuated the movement of the group of birds. The rest of it was just more water. The water didn't really do much to add to the picture, so I had to go with it and say, "I'm going to crop this because I think it will really look great later as a crop."

In Summary

Sometimes it's not always equipment that makes for a good shot. Sometimes it comes down to technique and processing. This amazing picture of birds in flight is the result of great panning, perfect exposure and careful cropping.