Swallows

After my encounters with both Munias, I was a very happy birder, and happiness is good thing. Makes you work harder, can even encourage you to attempt what looks waste of energy at other times. Now, I did not really believe that if you point your camera towards those tiny birds shooting across sky in all directions in completely unpredictable way, you can actually take a shot with one of them inside the frame. but that touch of extra happiness made the difference and I attempted some shots. and guess what? I did get some, actually many of them inside the frame in next three or four days.

I know there are hundreads of better shots of swallows and swifts taken by many others, and still I was so very thrilled to get these shots as for me it wasn't the question of how well these shots can be taken instead it was more primary journey from what I thought was kind of impossible to possible. Adding to the excitement was the fact that it turned out a mixed flock and I ended up with a first shots of not one or two but good half a dozen species!

Barn Swallow

Red-Rumped Swallow

Red-Rumped Swallow

Dusky Crag Martin

Streak-throated Swallow

Streak-throated Swallow

Asian Palm Swift

? - This doesn't appear in my field guide to birds of Indian subcontinent

Barn Swallow

All these are of course heavy crops, not very far from 100%. a full frame of above looks something like below. bird is only marginally bigger in most other frames.

Biggest hurdle to my attempts was very poor availability of clear sky. All I had were one or two patches of open sky. I often ran into frame like above by the time bird was in frame and at other times by the time bird emerged from behind trees, it was too late to attempt capturing it. Overall, however, I know that you cant have each and every factor in your favour so I am not complaining. One thing however, I am not sure if it was I can do something about - I think I needed to expose at least +1EV or slightly more to get details (air was as clear as it could be - but it wasn't totally haze free and one of the days was completely cloudy) but if I overexpose, it kept hunting for the focus till I reduce overexposure to around +1EV or less. Is that normal or I was doing something wrong?