How not to take a bird photo
Oct 6th, 2008 by Birdy Trish
I’ve got a lot of birds flitting about at the feeders. They’re so colourful and there’s such a difference in size and type. The ground feeder is popular and sparrows, blue tits and great tits all use this feeder in harmony!
I like taking photos and try and get a good photo. But it’s difficult!
Here’s how not to take a bird photo. I think my hand wasn’t steady, I didn’t have the camera set right, and I should have tried to get closer.
Bird photography is very tricky
Tags: bird, photograph
Now the lighting conditions are more difficult it gets harder to take really sharp photos. If at all possible find something to lean on! I try to lean the hand which is operating the shutter on a wall or something else solid. This helps to combat the dreaded camera shake.
If you can adjust the film speed (even though it is a digital camera) then now is the time to up the value. If your camera has something in the menu system where you can change the ISO number then the higher the number the better for poor lighting conditions. Higher number will mean more ‘noise’ (spotty dots) on the picture but will still give clearer pictures. I have my camera set to 800 ISO at the moment and sometimes at 1600 ISO. I think this could be labelled ASA on some cameras.
One tip used to be to take a half breath in and hold that while taking the picture to help eliminate movement due to breathing.
If you can set up the camera on a tripod looking through a window then this make a real difference and if your camera allows you to plug in a remote shutter release cable then that is even better as most of the ’shake’ seems to me to occur at the moment of pressing the shutter button.
If the camera can be set to take a rapid sequence of shots - try that as it gives you more shots to pick out a good one from.
Hope this may help a little. John
Hi, Yes that helps a lot. I do have a small tripod and also I could take half a breath. Also know that I should understand the workings of the camera more. Will look into what you’ve mentioned. Thank you. Trisha