evan north , Feb 03, 2012; 10:47 a.m.
hi, recently i have been trying to get birds in flight, or about to take off but my pics have been subject to motion blur even with flash. i used the d7000, and sb700. camera is set to manual , usually f 5.6, 1/320s,auto fp, iso 500. how can i get better results? lighting is low in most situations so simply upping the shutter speed wont work.
Jose Angel 
, Feb 03, 2012; 10:52 a.m.
evan north , Feb 03, 2012; 10:54 a.m.
at the time i was using the sigma 150mm with the sigma 1.4 TC.
Jose Angel , Feb 03, 2012; 11:00 a.m.
If the flash doesn`t freeze "your" action, probably you`re getting enough ambient light to show the motion.
If you cannot use higher shutter speeds, shoot in complete darkness to freeze with the flash (flash dustion use to be faster than 1/1000 second).
evan north , Feb 03, 2012; 11:04 a.m.
i thought i may be able to use a shorter flash duration, i cant switch off the sun!
Jose Angel , Feb 03, 2012; 11:08 a.m.
In FP mode, my D700 with the SB800 sync at higher speeds. The issue is that light power is dramatically reduced. It could not reach the subject. Don`t know the D7000 + SB700. It should, I guess.
Dieter Schaefer 
, Feb 03, 2012; 11:23 a.m.
Since your flash has to fire a couple of times in FP sync mode, output and reach are greatly reduced. I suggest to use non-FP mode and full power on your flash. And even then, ambient light might be strong enough to show the motion blur of the moving bird.
Lorne Sunley 
, Feb 03, 2012; 11:26 a.m.
If you have subject motion blur you need to increase the shutter speed, try using ISO 1600 or 3200 that will give you a shutter speed close to 1/1000
Tom Boston , Feb 03, 2012; 02:10 p.m.
Take two shots, one with flash and one without but with the same settings otherwise. Unless the one without flash is significantly darker, then your problem is too much ambient light. You can do the same check by looking at the exposure meter.
The real problem is that using flash for birds in flight is one of those things that just doesn't work, or at least not too often.
Frank Skomial , Feb 03, 2012; 03:10 p.m.
Your flash has no power for what you want to do.
Any bird flying by will be farther away than possibly exposure by this flash or perhaps any other flash, unless the bird is your home parrot.
I suggest to learn more about your equipment, so it could be more usable to you. E.g. learn to observe maximum flash distance value on your flash LCD screen. The flash takes on account your ISO, aperture, mode, and comes up with distance estimate that displays for you to obey.
