Every guy who owns a DSLR and a telephoto lens aspires to capture good avian images. But they might turn out mediocre mainly due to lack of skills and patience. You need not be a professional photographer to click good photos. All you need are some tricks and loads of patience to click some good bird photos.
In this article we will share some thoughts and experiences on the subject. The best place for bird photography is park. Park is a place where birds are more used to people. Birds near feaders are usually friendly and will not be frightened by you.
Equipment for Bird Photography :
Lens for bird photography
Birds are very sensitive. You cannot get close to them. So you need a good telephoto lens.
Lens used for Birds Photography. 18-200mm and 70-300mm can cover wide , medium and long range of shots. Canon 100-400 mm lens takes a decent shots. Longer focal length helps you get more reach.
Recommended setting for bird photography
Make sure you set your shutter speed as fast as possible. 1/500s makes a good shutter speed. With fast shutter speed you need as much light as possible. It means you need a wide aperture. Keeping aperture wide open will reduce the depth of field dramatically and will also eliminate distracting background.
Settings: Representation image
Composing your image
Always compose your image using Rule of thirds. Break it whenever you want to. Shallow depth of field makes the subject stand out. Eyes adds life to images. Capture an image which can tell a story. A beautiful shot is always a combination of action, emotions, colors, depth and clarity.By Studying the behavior and familiarizing you will able to predict the moves and thus increase the chances of getting the awesome shots.
10 Tips for amazing bird photography
Composition.
Always follow Rule of thirds. Never place the subject in center of the frame.
Adjust your elevation.
Always shoot at eye level. your best photos are the one in which bird is flying down low or when you can get to climb a hill or in an elevated bird stand.
Set your Camera
Use faster shutter speed
Sharp aperture
Continous focus mode
Shooting away from the sun.
Shooting away from sun will give you good quality images.
Shoot in burst modes.
This will increase your chances of getting a sharper images
Depth-of-field.
Shallow depth of field will make the subject stand out and look good.
Use Image Stabilization.
Turn on the image stabilization. It stabilizes your image.
ISO
Set ISO to 100. This is the lowest value.
Use the pre- defined modes.
Some new DSLRs allow photographers to set a pre defined collection of settings that can be activated by simply rotating the mode dial.
Pay attention to the background.
Instead of pure blue sky background find some interesting background such that viewers are not distracted from the subject. Choose the background in such a way that it separate the subject from other elements.
Conclusion
Clicking bird images needs loads of practice and patience. You might delete more images than you keep. So shooting digital images is beneficial.
Clicking into the backyard can be rewarding. You get to see nature at her best.
