While visiting the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas earlier this year, I captured this image of two green jays in action:

Green JaysGreen Jays (Cyanocorax yncas) at the Santa Clara Ranch near McCook, Texas on January 11, 2014 To improve my chances of capturing this photo, I used the following approach:

• Secured the camera/lens to a tripod.
• Pre-focused on the stump and left the focus there.
• Set the aperture at f/8 to provide enough depth of field to keep both birds in focus.
• Used high speed continuous burst mode--more frames means more chances of getting an acceptable image.
• Set the shutter speed at 1/2000th of a second.

Since the image was already framed with the camera locked down on a tripod and the focus was set, I didn't even need to look through the viewfinder to take this picture. I simply waited for the birds to enter the frame and then initiated a continuous burst of frames. Using this approach, an acceptable image was created every so often. With today's digital technology, I just deleted the frames that didn't work out.

The thing that surprised me about this photo is the remaining blur of the wings at such a fast shutter speed (1/2000th). I thought that shutter speed would freeze the wings. In the end, I don't mind the amount of blur as it portrays motion. But, those wings must have been moving at near hummingbird speed for movement to be present at 1/2000th!