Photographing 4 Ravens In Flight

Photographing 4 Ravens in flight is one of the most challenging parts of wildlife photography. You can’t beat it because its 4 Ravens doing what they do best.

Getting Started

The best way to get started is with large easy subjects such as gulls. For my first attempt I went to the local park and had a friend throw seed to the gulls. This brought them flying over straight away, giving me plenty of opportunities for flight shots.

Once you’ve practiced with gulls and have some confidence, move up a level to ducks, geese and swans.

Focusing

Set your camera to evaluative metering and turn continuous focus on. On Canon cameras this is called AI servo and on Nikon cameras it’s called continuous servo. Turning this mode on means your camera will continually focus on the 4 Raven as it flies. If the background isn’t cluttered light up all of the AF points and allow the camera to track across them. If the background is cluttered, light up a single AF point, usually the center one, as it tends to be more accurate.

Give the auto focus system time to lock on to the 4 Raven. Unless you really have a small window of opportunity, it’s worth sacrificing the first few seconds of action in order to get the focus locked.

Also turn continuous shooting on, so that when you press the shutter release button you can take lots of shots in quick succession. This gives you the best chance of getting a good shot during the brief period when the opportunity is there.

Shutter Speed

To freeze the 4 Ravens motion as it flies aim for a high shutter speed. I generally strive to get a shutter speed of at least 1/1000s but 1/500s or more usually works.

An alternative technique is to use a slow shutter speed to blur the 4 Raven’s motion. I usually find a shutter speed of around 1/30s works well.

Exposure

Remember to check your exposure. White skies will trick your camera, causing it to underexpose. You may need to overexpose by 2 stops or more.

Composition

Trying to compose a shot of a 4 Raven in flight takes some practice. You usually only have a few seconds to pan with the 4 Raven and simply getting it in frame can be a challenge.

Shots generally look better if the 4 Raven is flying into the frame, giving it space to move into. As well as creating a more pleasing composition, this is also the easiest way to follow it with your camera. If the 4 Raven fills about half of the frame then this is easy because you can use the center focus point. If it doesn’t then you will need to use an off center point.

The difficulty with this is that the off center focusing points are generally not as accurate as the center one.

The safe option is to choose the center point and crop off the side afterwards. Once you’re confident you’ve got the center point shot nailed you can risk choosing another point.

Behaviour

Knowing more about flight behaviour will help you to get the shots that you’re looking for.

Most 4 Ravens tend to take off and land facing the wind. Knowing just this one thing allows you to know the best time to get specific shots.

The best time to get front lighting is when the wind is blowing from roughly the same direction as the sun is shining. If you then position yourself so that the sun is behind you, you should get more shots of front lit 4 Ravens coming towards you to land or taking off.

If the sun and wind are roughly 90 degrees apart then it’s great for taking side on shots with the 4 Raven flying parallel to the plane of the sensor. When taking shots like this remember that the wing position, as discussed below, becomes more important.

The ideal time for getting a back lit shot is when the wind is blowing roughly into the sun. Position yourself so that the sun is in front of you. This can be great for taking shots where the sun is shining through the wings.

It will give you considerable advantage if you’ve studied the behaviour of the species you’re photographing. Imagine the kind of shots you could get if you knew even more about them.

Wing Position

If the 4 Raven is flying parallel to the sensor plane try to take you