Mission: Impossible

[QuietOne]

I was going to take some shots of the pond in Julia Davis Park, especially the reflections of logs and trees. I got to the park, all right, but with the winds (again), the reflections I'd seen that morning driving into work just weren't gonna happen.

So. I had a heavily overcast day - got rained on, though I did manage to get back to the office before the hail started. I have a not terribly long, not terribly fast lens. Therefore, the perfect thing to photograph is swallows doing speed runs across the pond. I am certifiable. But I haven't had so much fun with crappy, fuzzy pictures in ages. Next time I'll try bumping the ISO to ridiculous, just to get the shutter speed with good enough DOF.

Most of them were barn swallows, but there were a few tree swallows, too.

[Kawarthabob]

I dont think iso speed would do anything but make the picture grainy in this instance. Set your camera to a higher time value like 1/1000 so you can freeze them in flight.

[Hillbillygirl]

Definitely a challenging subject for sure. Don't give up though.
I have yet to give it a go here. We have approx. 4 pairs nesting in barn, and they buzz the fields and ponds every night.
KawarthaBob: If you accelerate the shutter to freeze the action with a slow lens you cut the light reaching sensor dramatically. Have no choice but to bump up iso to get more light sensitivity.

[Mad Aussie]

Great timing, crap shots there Q1 But glad you had fun.

Faster shutter speeds are obviously the answer to freezing these guys but even in good light with a fast zoom lens they are terribly hard to get. So fast and small and hardly fly further than a few meters in a straight line so focus is even harder for that.

If you have a decent ext flash that has a high speed setting then use it. The speed of the flash allows a slower shutter speed to be used because the flash is very fast and tends to freeze the action. You may have found that with as low as 1/400 and the flash you'd have gotten some nice results.

[Richard]

If you have a decent ext flash that has a high speed setting then use it. The speed of the flash allows a slower shutter speed to be used because the flash is very fast and tends to freeze the action. You may have found that with as low as 1/400 and the flash you'd have gotten some nice results.

cool tip with the flash, thanks for sharing MA..

The timing here is good, I've not managed to get one good bird in flight picture yet, so I can't really comment...

[QuietOne]

I don't have a flash, other than the one built into the camera. Eventually. First on the list, I think, is a polarizing filter. Summer's coming, I shoot around water a lot, and on days with a reasonable amount of light, certain flowers just are hard for the camera to deal with.

Not to hijack my own thread or anything, but I'm still trying to sort out what's a good enough filter. I reread the thread asking about ND filters, saw the reference about Marumi filters. Any thoughts on that one? Other than tech specs and test photos of street lights at night, what I've got to go on is threads on various boards. And the arguments are all over the place on brands.

To reiterate, I've got as much as $150 to work with, and given that I have a kit lens, the filter just needs to be good enough. I'll go back and look at some test reviews I saw, but after that, I'll probably just pick something and hope it's good enough.

HBG, I won't give up yet. There will be sunshine eventually, which will help. There's an intersection near my home where they fly through - canals near by, so I'm guessing the cars stir up the insects. There's also at least one spot in the nature reserve where you can see them from a small bridge. It's luck of the draw as to whether they'll fly close enough on any given day.

[Mad Aussie]

I think like anything, many opinionare subjective. Mostly those who own more expensive equipment like to justify their purchase so won't tell you they can't see much difference.
From what I've found in filters, the multi-coated ones are best but only in more extreme situations. In good conditions I'm damned if I can see a difference between filters. And the same goes for lenses for that matter. I've seen my daughter get a better shot than me with her $300 lenses when I was using my $2000 glass.