I went to Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, south of Marineland Florida, looking for Great Horned Owl Chicks, but I had a  lot of fun with a pair of Osprey hunting over the river. With flight shots, at least for me, it is always a balance between sufficient reach (long focal length) to catch a significantly sized bird in the frame, and a wide enough field of view (short focal length) to get and keep the bird in the frame at all. The Canon SX40HS I use does not focus as fast as a DSLR in this application either, so I have to keep the bird in the frame longer to get focus lock. Sigh.

Still, with cooperative birds and patience (and by shooting a lot of frames) you can get satisfying results. These were all shot at about 680mm equivalent field of view. The two Osprey were actively hunting well out over the river, nearly to the other side, at least 500 yards off and that high in the sky. At that focal length, backed off from the full 840mm optical reach of the zoom, I could get them in the frame and lock focus, but I had to crop the resulting images from 12mp down to about 5mp to get the birds to fill a significant amount of the frame, and to show detail. As it happens, the Canon images have enough resolution to support the crop. I was pretty happy with these. Certainly a DSLR with an image stabilized 600mm lens would have done better…but I do not carry a DSLR rig by choice, and hand-holding a 600mm lens for flight shots is not easy for anyone. My tiny (comparatively) SX40HS does me well.

Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.  684mm equivalent field of view. 1) f5.8 @ 1/1000 @ ISO160. 2) and 3) f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 125. 4) f5.8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100.

Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.  Cropped for image scale.