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July 22, 2006
[ PHOTOGRAPHING BIRDS ]
BARRY WANTS TO KNOW [see his Forum post] how I get the birds to sit still long enough to take their photo. I wish that I could claim a trade secret but in fact my approach is pretty basic.
1. Use a fast camera with a 200mm lens. My Nikon D70 is instantaneous with very quick auto focus and no shutter lag. The secondary advantage of using the long lens is shallow depth of field which blurs the background. The birds stand out splendidly against an out-of-focus background.
2. Anticipate where the bird will be and prefocus [halfway shutter depress], then wait until it strikes the anticpated pose then snap!
3. Take lots of photos. I set the camera to Burst mode. Remember the great advantage of digital — it is free and you get instant review of the image. If the picture is no good reset the exposure compensation and take another one.
4. Establish a feeding routine for the birds so that you have a fair idea of where they're going to be. As the great David Attenborough once explained to me, if you walk around looking up into the trees hoping to see and photograph a flying snake [which we were talking about at the time] you'll finish up with no picture and a crick in the neck. He got his amazing film of flying snakes by catching a snake, putting it in a bag and sending a chap up a tree to put the snake on a branch and poke it with a stick. Bingo! Flying snake!
I am fully aware of the objections to feeding native birds. When we moved into our house 30 years ago the garden was full of native plants and the only birds we ever saw were starlings, Indian miners and sparrows. One day we were surprised to see a pair of Crimson Rosellas in the garden so we bought a seed blob [I'm not sure what they are called — seed stuck together with honey and hanging from a wire] and suddenly we had rosellas and lorikeets and the exotic aerial pests disappeared. These days we never see an exotic bird but the trees are alive with the racket of the locals. I cannot find it in myself to apologise for this transformation.
We also feed the carnivores, the Magpies, Currawongs and Butcher Birds. They like us and we like them. They think that God put humans on earth to give them mince meat and who are we to ridicule their religious beliefs?
There are a number of bird and animal species that have formed a mutually beneficial relationship with humans in the urban environment. We give each other immense pleasure. They come and go as they please and sometimes they sit still for just long enough to have their photo taken.
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ALTERNATIVE SITE FOR BIRD PHOTOS — smaller pictures but fast download.
Posted by terry at July 22, 2006 01:36 AM
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Comments
Hi Terry,
Thanks for answering my query so quickly.
I only used bribery for the kids!!!
Now I need to do it for the birds!
Posted by: Barry_C at July 22, 2006 10:50 AM
Put some calcium on the meat you feed carnivores - they need it - so H Worth says.....
and you wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of Dr Worth
Posted by: Anonymous at February 4, 2007 03:03 AM