I’d always wanted to see how hard it is to catch a clay pigeon exploding in mid flight.

(f/10, 1/250sec, 135mm, ISO-400)

Bloody difficult. That’s how hard it is.

Reckon my failings here were the low shutter speed, possibly compounded by poor aperture choice.

Sadly the day I tried it, the weather was pretty dull and grey. Added to that, the lens was never going to be able to track and focus on the clay. I ended up pre-focusing at roughly the range I thought the clay would get hit, then tracking it from the launcher and zooming in on it as I went.

I think I maybe fired 30 or 40 shots trying to get something like this. Out of the set I have 3 where the clay is obviously hit.

Needless to say, it helps if the guys shooting at the clays is competent and hits them more often than not.