Depth of Field and Fighting Birds.....a tough combination

This week I was hoping to get a shot of two male prairie chickens jumping in the air fighting....or at least trying to impress the girls. After watching several of these fights it seems that neither really wants to get hurt or hurt the other one, just look tough for the girls.

Anyway, there is a concept in photography called "depth of field." That is the area of a photograph that can be in focus at any given time in front of and behind the focal point. For a shorter lens, like a cell phone camera or on a point and shoot the depth of field is so large that most people have no reason to even know the term. For larger lenses, the depth of field becomes much smaller. For a lens the size of mine the depth of field is only a couple of inches. This means that I cannot focus on two birds at the same time unless they are both the exact same distance from me. If they are standing at an angle than its impossible.

That would not be a problem because just having one bird in focus during a fight could be pretty attractive. The problem is that they usually jump forward or backwards when they fight, leaving the focal point that I was at and they are FAST. They tend to lay down in front of each other and stare each other down for a few seconds before jumping. Even with that warning I never caught the action when the birds were close enough to make a great photograph. When the birds were a couple of hundred feet away the D.O.F. increases some and it was easier but none of those shots are that great.

Anyway, when I saw the birds face off I would turn up the ISO (what used to be film speed) which allowed me to increase the shutter speed so I could be prepared to capture this fast action without blur. Then I would position the bottom of the frame at the birds feet so I would have room in the frame for them to jump. I also switched the autofocus to "servo" so it would automatically track the forward and backward movement and adjust the autofocus. I still never caught one, darn it!

I still had the time of my life but as I look at these two shots I can't help but wonder about what might have been if I could have gotten them in focus. They are SO CLOSE and they would have been fantastic!!!