Timing:

This fun and informative class runs in three parts, with two Saturday morning sessions in our classroom and a Sunday morning outdoor shoot: April 15th, 16th and 22nd. See below for complete details.

Class Overview:

Successfully photographing birds in flight is one of the most joyful, gratifying, and challenging forms of action photography. During this fascinating 3-part workshop, longtime Looking Glass instructor Dave Strauss guides you through useful techniques, equipment selection, camera settings, light considerations and observation site selection -- the keys to capturing beautiful, accurately exposed, sharply focused images of flying birds, as well as other flying creatures like butterflies and dragonflies.

Session 1 - Saturday, April 15th: 10:30am – 12:00pm  

Dave will spend 1½ highly interactive hours with a maximum of 8 participants in the Looking Glass classroom. He’ll show you many examples of “bad” and “good” photos of flying birds and other flying creatures, explaining why the bad ones don’t work and how to consistently capture the good ones. He’ll cover light considerations, cameras and lenses, camera settings, sighting/framing techniques, and of course answer all your questions.

Session 2 - Sunday, April 16th: 8:30am – 10:00am

Dave will meet with attendees at close by outdoor location for a field shoot (location details will be provided upon registering for safety and security purposes). Participants will learn from Dave and each other as they photograph many species of birds under a variety of flight conditions. Each photographer will identify a few favorite images (and perhaps a few troublesome images that raise interesting questions) for discussion during Session 3.

Session 3 - Saturday, April 22nd: 10:30am – 12:00pm 

The group will gather again in the Looking Glass classroom to review and learn from everyone’s photos. Dave spends time on each of your submitted images, exploring your intentions and discussing which aspects of your shots are working and which could be improved. Most attendees of Dave’s classes tell us that his review sessions are “the best part”; fun, fascinating, and packed with ideas, tips, and techniques.

Prerequisites:

This workshop is best suited for intermediate photographers who use DSLRs or MILCs (mirrorless cameras) with lenses of at least 300mm. If you don’t own such a lens, we recommend buying or borrowing one and experimenting with it prior to the workshop.

Tripods are optional but recommended. A 3-way tilt-pan or gimbal head with a quick-release is best; ball heads don’t work well in this application.

We suggest bringing spare camera batteries and a pocket notebook.

You’ll benefit from being generally familiar with these terms: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focus, and depth-of-field. We strongly recommend reviewing your camera manual section which describes the autofocus features of your camera. You should know how to set aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to specific values on your camera even if you’re not quite sure which values to use. (NOTE: Point & Shoot or “bridge” cameras are not well suited to this class.)

Health & Safety:

Let’s protect each other! To attend the in-classroom portions of this workshop, you need to have a negative result from a Covid self-test not more than 24 hours prior to the classroom session. Questions? Send us a note using our Contact Form here.

Cancellations:

Looking Glass requires 72-hour notice of cancellation for a full refund.