Hey Nhut, great shot as always... can you send me the original of this (above) picture? But please don't resize it. If the original is RAW, just convert it to jpeg - but please don't resize.


BTW, I was at a park yesterday and tried to shoot *flying* birds for the first time with my new 50D. 99% of what I got doesn't worth it, but I've got 1 or 2 reasonable (relatively speaking) pictures. All I've got right now is the 17-85, so I zoomed all the way in and tried to do the best that I could. Unfortunately, I did 2 serious mistake:


1. I put the AF on AI Focus instead of AI Servo (I was sure I was shooting with AI Servo)


2. After getting dark birds, I thought "well the problem is the sky so I might just switch to spot metering" - but today I read a little bit about bird photography and realized the mistake I did... there is no way that the spot metering will work with such small birds flying at damn high speed very high in the sky LOL [:P]





So Nhut (or anyone else who photograph birds), do you have any suggestions of what are the ideal camera settings for shooting flying birds high at the sky? (except to getting a longer lens lol)


As I see it now, I **guess** that I should use (I assume shooting outside with daylight):


1. Av mode


2. Evaluative metering


3. AI Servo


4. Adjust the exposure compensation to at least +1





But what about the aperture?


What is the minimal shutter speed needed to freeze the bird?


Should I turn on highlight tone priority?


Should I use continuous shooting or single?