Photographing Your Bird

[Monica]

Photographing Your Bird

The best setting for photos of your companion parrot are those which show the bird doing favorite, funny or natural things. Getting in close enough to get a good shot is the next most important issue. Followed by capturing just the essence of the action. A shot of only the bird's head and foot holding it's toy as it attacks it would be a much better shot than the whole bird and stand of the same shot. This is more difficult than it sounds and you may need to take several photos of the same shot in order to be able to pick out the best one.

Helpful hints for shooting your bird (with a camera)!
Once your bird has been photograhed enough to recognize the camera, it may become a real challenge to get good shots.

• Multiple shots with slightly different settings, angles and depth of field.
• Flip the camera to make the shot vertically when called for. This is especially important when capturing a bird with a long tail or to eliminate wasted space on each side of your photo.
• With a Zoom lense you can get much closer photos to also eliminate the extra blank spaces and without interferring with your birds activity. My favorite lense is my 28-210mm Zoom.
• Try to get a natural background or blur it out. The most important thing about backgrounds is what NOT to include. No protrusions sticking out at odd angles, and nothing that will appear to be growing from the behind the bird's head or torso.
• Get down to eye level with your bird, or even lower. These angles will be more interesting and natural.
• Make it fun for your bird! Giving a nut or toy to occupy it will give YOU more time to set up and shoot.
• It is NO fun to be flashed repeatedly, so go easy or eliminate the flash by taking photos outside.

From the New York Institute of Photography:

"Birds may be fun to watch, but they're notoriously difficult to capture on film. One of the biggest challenges faced by the bird photographer is getting close enough to the subject to be able to produce a good image. The easiest (though also the most expensive) solution to this problem is to work with a telephoto lens. Most professional bird photographers, in fact, often use a 500mm or 600mm telephoto lens, sometimes coupled with a teleconverter (a device that extends the lens’ focal length). But for amateur photographers who want to photograph birds without buying a lot of expensive equipment, there are always other methods and options. “If you’re going after the Andean Condor, you’re going to need a telephoto lens to get the shot,” said Chuck DeLaney, Dean of NYI, America’s oldest and largest photography school. “But if you’re mainly interested in photographing birds in your region, maybe just in your backyard, there are still plenty of options, like using a blind for getting good photos.” One strategy, employed quite cleverly by an NYI graduate, is particularly well-suited for the backyard bird photographer. To capture songbirds (who are notorious for their quick, erratic movements and thus difficult to photograph), she positions her Canon SLR near a feeder, sets the focus, aperture, and shutter speed, then retreats to the porch. She waits there until a bird comes to the feeder, then, when the moment is right, she uses her infrared control to trigger her camera’s shutter. Birds approach her feeders and backyard perches because she is out of sight, and, as a result, she’s able to get closer shots without using a telephoto lens. For more great suggestions on how to take bird photos and lots of great photos, see the article on Bird Photography in this month’s Web site of the New York Institute of Photography".

© 2001 -2004 by Talking Green Parrot Aviary

[jimpierce7]

good post...........I want to get a better digi cam then what I have so I can take true photographic pictures instead of point n shoot shots.

[NaniOokami]

What do you suggest for low-lighting situations? I've used a flash as my Nanday doesn't seem to mind it all that much, but they never seem to come even close to the shots I was able to get outside while the weather was still warm.

I don't know if it helps, but I use a Minolta Maxxum 7D for most of my photographic endeavors (It's not /my/ camera, but it's the least-used SLR in my family, so they aren't too upset about letting me borrow it)

[Odysseus]

Originally Posted by NaniOokami

What do you suggest for low-lighting situations? I've used a flash as my Nanday doesn't seem to mind it all that much, but they never seem to come even close to the shots I was able to get outside while the weather was still warm.

Are you concerned about the camera's flash bothering the bird? If you want to go without a flash:

--You could up the ISO setting on your camera.

--You could use a tripod allowing your camera to have a longer shutter and stay still during the shot. If your camera moves with a longer shutter the whole picture is blurry.

In a longer shutter the moving objects in the shot will be blurry, sometimes a nice effect to artistically frame motion.

--Instead of a flash brightening the room use available lamps to bounce light off walls that will add a brighter diffused light on the subject thereby not needing a flash to give the camera adequate light to clearly photograph your subject.

[swanwillow]

my problems have always been with crummy cameras, until my mom gets talked into bringing hers over.

I found that the old fashioned FILM cameras do great with capturing the colors. Santa is going to be buying me a digi this christmas for birdie pictures... Any advice on picking out a good cam?

[jenseits]

Originally Posted by swanwillow

Santa is going to be buying me a digi this christmas for birdie pictures... Any advice on picking out a good cam?

Are you looking for a point-and-shoot or a DSLR? And what's Santa's price range?

[swanwillow]

santa has a small budget.. Most of the budget is for silly things, like x-box and nintendo ds games.

I want a point and shoot. But then again, I do like things with really good zoom definition (for saltwater fishtank pictures.. ohohoh!)

[birdsnreps]

great info, i just bought a digi cam with 15X zoom, its great for photographing birds at the zoo, or even just the birds at home :) i still hate the blurry shots, when im trying to catch the birds flying or moving around. gosh, i still have alot to learn before i can actually take any good shots :(

[Buteo]

Good advice.

I use my Fuji 602Z digital camera most of the time now, but I've had my Canon AE-1 Program 35mm film cam for years. I've got a bunch of lenses and extenders for it that I use for wildlife photography- from 50mm to well over 500mm.

Birds are probably the hardest subjects to shoot.
They are quite often high up in the foliage of trees, usually requiring 300mm to 1000mm of telephoto or zoom, and backgrounds are either heavily shadowed or against a high contrast sky.

Any shots taken at zoom should be braced against a solid object whenever possible. Any shot of over 200mm should be taken on a tripod.
Learning to control your breathing is important for reducing blur, but really LONG shots (300mm+) will usually require the use of external trigger releases. (At a 500mm, the slightest touch on the camera will turn the scene through the viewfinder into an earthquake zone. A single finger tip on the shutter button and your heartbeat alone will make the picture jump around like you were trying to take the shot from a moving train!).

There's a great flexible tripod out there called The GorillaPod that can be extremely handy. It can be used on flat surfaces like any desktop tripod, or the legs can be bent around to grip railings or branches (very handy for unusual locations).

Photos of pet birds are usually easier as most of them will be indoor shots; It's a big help because most are taken at much lower zoom levels and lighting is easier to control & manipulate. Of course, it's always nice to use available light sources when possible, but indoors you can add fill lights to change or eliminate shadows.
If your cam can utilize an external flash, try to get one with an adjustble head so you can angle the flash away and "bounce" the light rather than use it straight on. It's much easier on your poor pet than to repeatedly blind it with a flash's high intensity photon barrage.

I've used the "trick" of faster speed films for a long time. Raising the film speed or ISO can vastly improve the shutter speed for fast moving targets like birds. It also allows you to use the flash less.
The down-side to higher ISO is the higher the ISO becomes, the grainier and more chroma noise is introduced into the pics especially in dimmer lighting.
**Chroma noise is the term used to discribe the tiny flecks or patches of odd colors (commonly red or green) that show up in some pictures.



BTW, Jim, your new cam takes great shots. You'll find it will serve you quite well when you start using more of the features in manual mode.

[Sally]

Digital SLR'S are wonderful.