GEOFFREY ELLIS

Nikon D7500 Nikon 200 – 500 mm lens

GEOFFREY WRITES: We were sitting in Mankwe Hide in the Pilanesberg one day. It was hot and we were having a bite to eat. I noticed a pair of white-rumped swifts circling. Their repetitive motion meant that they nearly always returned to the same point near the corner of the hide, giving me an opportunity to get a shot.

After many out-of-focus attempts, my patience paid off and I managed to get a couple of photos that I’m proud of. These are incredibly small birds, and they move at a very high speed. I used a shutter speed of 1/1 000 second, aperture f6.3 and ISO 400.

TOAST SAYS: Geoffrey, I’m standing up and giving you a round of applause! Photographing birds in flight is one of the toughest assignments you can give yourself as a wildlife photographer. It’s one thing getting a passable snap of something bulky with a predictable flight path, like an Egyptian goose, sacred ibis or kori bustard, but quite another to get a sharp photo of one of these little ninjas!

Swallows, swifts and housemartins are devilishly hard to identify in flight (I gave up long ago), but if you can get a sharpish photo, then it’s much easier to ID the bird later. Still, there’s a difference between a photo that’s fine for identification purposes, and a truly outstanding shot that could go into a frame above the fireplace. Geoffrey’s shot falls into the latter category. Besides the fact that it’s perfectly sharp, the bird is also flying towards the camera, which is an even bigger technical achievement. Your camera’s autofocus and focus-tracking systems need more than one coffee to be nimble enough for that task.

I also like the way the swift connects the lighter part of the background (the sky) to the darker part below the horizon. The one wing dips into the horizon, which creates a handy visual hook there. Well done, Geoffrey, you win the go! camera bag this time around.