Useful Bird Photography Tips for Absolute Beginners

We have always looked at them, and wanted to have wings like them — yes, I am talking about birds. They are beautiful, incredible and inspiring. It’s easy to capture them by the eye lenses but not so easy capturing them by camera’s lenses.

But the difficulties are no inhibitions for bird photographers. They know techniques to capture top quality images of birds. In this article, I’ll demystify some of those techniques, so the budding photographers, who are still on the groove could proceed further.

The longer the lens, the better

Always use longer lenses to shoot photos of birds. I strongly recommend you to use a telephoto lens. The focal length of a telephoto lens is longer than that of an average lens. It allows for the photographer to focus on objects, which are far away. Aside from that, longer lenses make it easy to autofocus on distant objects.

Such lenses come with a switch. The switch knows the distance that the focal length can aim at, and based on that it determines which object is optimal for the camera to focus. Very simply put, it contributes to the performance of the autofocus. If your lens doesn’t have any such switch, then the autofocus will keep searching for something to focus on. This would take time and amount to a poor performance.

Be prudent with depth-of-field

Selecting an appropriate depth-of-field is always difficult. Sometimes you need to select a large aperture while some other times, a small aperture. Even the most seasoned photographers can’t always decide whether to go with large or small aperture. You can follow my formula.

If the bird is big, and you want it to be captured in its entirety, go for a small aperture. But if you want to highlight any particular area such as the bird’s wingspan, the tail, the eyes or the beak, a large aperture is recommended. Hence, first decide what you want to shoot and then select the depth-of-field accordingly.

High shutter speed

Most photographers shoot birds when they are in flight. It’s possible when you shoot at a high shutter speed. When the shutter speed is high, the camera freezes the moment, and bird in motion is captured.

To ensure a high shutter speed, you need to invest in a mid-range DSLR camera. Don’t buy a budget camera because its autofocus performance, in all likelihood, is not up to the snuff, and that’d affect its shutter speed.

When you are using a mid-range gear, the shutter speed can be 1/1400 seconds, which is okay if you want to capture a bird in motion. You might wonder why do professional bird photographers use expensive cameras then? Because of frames per second (FPS). A mid-range DSLR camera can take bursts at up to three or four FPS whereas a fully professional device allows for capturing extended bursts at up to 10 FPS.

Hence, avail yourself a high-end camera and aim for a high shutter speed and capture extended bursts at a high FPS. This way, the quality of the image can be improved.

Behavior of birds

While the technical departments are undoubtedly important, the non-technical departments are important too. Many photographers regret that they should’ve selected a different bird or captured the still some moments before or later.

My advice is, don’t go near a bird, rather wait for the bird to fly off of a branch or to fly towards you. If you approach the bird instead, it might get scared and fly away. Some birds such as Common house sparrows and Robins are accustomed to the sight of humans. They won’t shy away seeing you getting near them with a camera. The wild birds like Yellow-Billed Storks, Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Purple-Rumped Sunbirds, etc don’t like humans getting close.

So, study the behavior of a bird to determine the optimal time to photograph it. If you are on a hiking or trekking trip, always keep the camera with you so you can focus and shoot at a moment’s notice.

Summing up

You can be a better bird photographer if you follow all the tips outlaid in this article. None of the tips is difficult to follow. Hence, get yourself a good camera and start capturing the stills of birds.

Shared by : Gulf Photo Plus