Raptor photography

[Scubamom]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question. I found a Birds of Prey Visitor Center a half hour drive away from me that will reopen next month. You can walk through the grounds & view the various raptors, and as well they do flying demonstrations. I figure that a fairly fast shutter speed would be the best to catch their flight, but wonder if anyone has any tips they could give me. I have a Fuji S5000.
Thx, Kathy

[ponder]

Kathy,
I've taken some white pelicans flying along Quake lake in Yellowstone with my Canon Powershot G3 and I used to shoot a lot of sports with my Canon F1n 35mm. I found that if you have good lighting and a fairly good ISO rating of 200 to 400, you should be able to shoot at a fast shutter speed, say 500th to 2000th of a second. A lot depends on the focal length of the lens that you're using and the overall light of the day.

The other thing you might want to try is panning. With panning you can slow the shutter speed down and then sight on the raptor say a red tailed hawk flying across your vision. You start swinging the camera along with its motion and then press the shutter, but as you do, keep swinging your body along with the hawk even after you shoot the image. The resulting image will show great speed. The hawk should be in focus and the background will be a blur, but it gives the illusion of great speed in the resulting photograph.

Experiment with both fast shutter speeds to freeze the raptor and panning to show the illusion of speed.

Here are a couple of good articles on panning and shutter speed techniques.

http://www.ephotozine.com/techniques....cfm?recid=248

Good luck,

Ponder

[Scubamom]

Thx Ponder. I will also try using the continuous burst setting. You may see some shots posted if they turn out!
Kathy