Birds in Flight Setup

Currently using the D7200 paired with the newest Nikon AF-S 80-400MM F/4.5-5.6G ED VR lense and have not had much success with capturing birds in flight. Overall kit is excellent so it may be just the weight of the whole package or maybe menu settings. I was shooting in AF-C, for shorebirds on the beach I found 9 Focus Points gave me the best results instead of just Single along with spot or matrix, matix seemed more dependable. Any tips for my next outing would be appreciated.
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Shutter as high as you can ,auto iso possibly up to 3200 ?.dont concern yourself with trying to focus on the eye yet go for upper body,continues high,and rattle plenty off.

Seagulls are the best to build your confidence with,here is my fist successful BIF,i should dump it but i was so pleased at the time.

06Honda said:

Currently using the D7200 paired with the newest Nikon AF-S 80-400MM F/4.5-5.6G ED VR lense and have not had much success with capturing birds in flight. Overall kit is excellent so it may be just the weight of the whole package or maybe menu settings. I was shooting in AF-C, for shorebirds on the beach I found 9 Focus Points gave me the best results instead of just Single along with spot or matrix, matix seemed more dependable. Any tips for my next outing would be appreciated.

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If you explain what exactly is the problem, we might be able to tell if it's technique or settings. It takes some practice for sure.

I was shooting in P mode, IDO set to auto, lense zomed to 400mm. Small shorbirds such as semipalmated plovers fly individually. Shots were blurred, this only happened trying flight shots.

Heres what i would do - but take with a grain of salt.

Shoot in RAW
Use back button focus as you can keep it depressed to hold/lock focus on the bird as it flies and you follow it.
Shoot in manual with Auto ISO
Single point exposure metering but keep an eye on underexposing if it is a dark bird and light background
9 or 11 point focusing if AF-C
Auto white balance
Aperture of 5.6
Shutter speed of 1/1000

Adjust as necessary from there.
The hardest part is keeping up with the bird but it gets easier with practice

Shutter speed shutter speed shutter speed for BIF

Get outta P mode go s mode or full manual start at 1600 for shore birds i'd go with 1/2000 at F8 their wings are fast auto Iso

I will change my settings going forward for sure, its about time I learned to use the other modes. Thanks all.

For what it's worth I use (mainly) 2000 sec (or a bit higher) f4 and "auto ISO" min 64 up to Max 3200 - Dynamic 21 point - AFC and CH - back button focus - Raw - and lots of practice...
getting a good shot of a bird in flight is "tricky" - but when you nail it ... it's worth all the effort.
good luck,

This shot is one of about 50 I took during the afternoon...and there was a lot of duds - but as I say "when you get a good one" it really brings a smile to your face...
good luck - and lets see some of your attempts.

Beautiful shot you got there, I'll get out and try some of the suggestions and post the results.

I'll just reinforce to shoot continuous at high speed and get as many shots as you can. You might be surprised when you look at 10 shots taken one after the other, and one or two are clearly better shots than the others. Modern autofocus does a great job, but shooting a flying bird takes the abilities of autofocus to its limits. Ignore people who say that this is "spray and pray." Anyone who doesn't work to maximize the likelihood of a good shot is simply wasting the great technology we have in our cameras these days.

I'm looking forward to seeing your results!

Not sure if you have this in the D7200, but using 1.3x crop mode on a D7100 can increase the Continous rate by an extra fps. Many of my bird shots will get cropped anyway, so might as well use that towards some extra speed.


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SpikeyLemon said:

Not sure if you have this in the D7200, but using 1.3x crop mode on a D7100 can increase the Continous rate by an extra fps. Many of my bird shots will get cropped anyway, so might as well use that towards some extra speed.


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Its not needed on the D7200 it has more buffer capacity,i found it too frustrating on mine any way,it was nicer to have a larger area.

It wasn't the buffer that I was referring but the number of frames it clicks per second on continuous mode.

On the buffer issue, I just had to practiced to become less trigger happy. My hit rate actually improved with intermittent burst in CH rather than hold it down (literally spray'n'pray). Might save you some processing time at the computer as there will be less to go through.


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SpikeyLemon said:

It wasn't the buffer that I was referring but the number of frames it clicks per second on continuous mode.

On the buffer issue, I just had to practiced to become less trigger happy. My hit rate actually improved with intermittent burst in CH rather than hold it down (literally spray'n'pray). Might save you some processing time at the computer as there will be less to go through.


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Never use CH dont need to throw that many clicks at an image,CL and a 3-5 burst depending on if i can keep the image sharp in the viewfinder