My persnol pigeon photography You will definitely have to set up your camera to shoot fast no mater of the lighting conditions. You might also want to have the camera shooting more frames one after the other. Your camera focus mode should be continuous (like in sports photography, for examples). Adjust your camera settings. You will certainly want to use continuous focus (AF-C on a Nikon, or AI Servo on a Canon), select the proper focus point (I usually use the center point or dynamic autofocus), a sharp aperture, and a fast shutter speed somewhere around 1/1200th of a second. Shoot away from the sun. Usually backlit birds will not be as nice-looking as front-lit birds. Simply planning to stand in the correct spot will significantly improve the quality of your images. Don't skimp on depth-of-field. Beginning birds in flight shooters often use the lowest aperture they have available to get a high shutter speed. While a high shutter speed is c...