"How-to" bird photography

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day fellas

Over the last few years I have created quite a variety of "how-to" notes for members of the o'seas Panasonic Cameras user group. Up to now about 3/4 of them have talked about camera controls and setting options--aimed at people who find the 300-page User Manual just too daunting. The remaining 1/4 are "how-to" shoot this or that

I have been asked to create some notes on bird photography

While I can put together 2-3 pages of stuff, I wondered whether as a team you would like to help me out with some ideas and stuff ... I do not want pages and pages, just a paragraph or three please, and hopefully I can blend stuff from Ralph and Alan and Isaac at least as I know you're all pretty good "shooting the birdies". I well realise that there's others on the team here who know a fair bit too, so all contributions will be gratefully received !!! I know there will be overlap between each offer of stuff, but no matter - some sets of words might be better suited than another (incl mine) so it will all be most useful

Hope you can assist
Phil

[Isac]

Congratulations on getting the gig Phil! I'm always willing to help out BUT I think Alan and Ralph would be the goto bird shooter and also Stephen avkomp is a whizz bird photographer. I'm not sure I would be able to offer much as far as settings go - Panasonic is a different breed to Canon. I do have specific settings for BIF which may or may not be helpful.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

Thanks for the response - don't worry too much about settings etc... it's tips for "how-to" to get those cracker shots we see here
Phil

[Ralph]

One tip I can think of is to have your camera in continuous mode or in some it is called burst mode and use this as the preferred way to get birds.
When I am out my camera is set to this and I will push the shutter button down and you can see that you have take so many shots. I try to limit it to 5 at a time or close to that.
Then I will take my finger off the shutter and reset myself for another set of 5 or so. I can do this 3 to 4 times and in this you are giving yourself a better chance at getting that shot you are after.
But nothing is written is stone so you could even go and do more but you may want to do less. There is no rule to this go on your gut or while the bird is presenting itself there for you.
I have seen a set of 5 and got 1 good shot out of it but at this same time I have got 5 good ones. So I use this method each and every time I go out.
I hope this is what you mean and also hope it helps what you are wanting to do Phil.

[wigz]

I have a few things that work for me.

• Try to get out early in the morning or late in the afternoon. The golden hour light can give attractive colour. While back-lit shots can be great, in most cases you will get better results with the sun more or less behind you. Try to avoid shadows on the bird.
• Try to get good eye-contact with the bird's head slightly facing you or side on, with the eye in focus and visible
• For best results use a lens of at least 400mm 35mm equivalent, particularly with smaller birds.
• Keep the shutter speed high, ISO low, and aperture as wide as possible. These are conflicting requirements so it is very much a balancing act,
• Use a shutter speed of 1/1600 or 1/2000 where possible. Even a perched bird moves quite a lot. If the light is not good, slower speeds, such as 1/250 or 1/400, in conjunction with image stabilisation, can give good results. For flying birds keep the shutter speed to 1/2000 or more, particularly smaller birds.
• Watch exposure for white birds, as it is easy to over-expose the whites and lose all detail, unless the bird fills a lot of the frame. I under-expose by 1 stop or so.
• Try to position yourself to avoid cluttered backgrounds and twigs and leaves in front of the subject
• If birds are active nearby, try just standing still for a while and they may move closer or to a better position
• Try to photograph at the bird's level or as near as possible. This may involve kneeling or lying down but it makes for a much more pleasing result. If a bird is high in a tree, move further away to reduce the angle if you can while keeping the bird at a reasonable size in the frame.
• Post-process to reduce blown highlights, lift shadows and bring out texture. Reducing brightness slightly will give more saturated colours. Shooting raw gives more scope for this and also allows to adjust white balance.
• Don't crop too tightly around the subject - give it some room to move.
• Use a single focus point or eye focus, if available, to avoid the camera focusing on the background, surrounding leaves or grass or other distractions. Depending on the camera subject tracking can help on moving birds.
• As Ralph said, shoot in short bursts if the bird is moving in any way. Even perched birds are usually continually making small movements.

I'm sure I've missed some obvious ones, and there are many articles and videos on the web from people much more knowledgeable than me.

[HansE]

Well put Alan. I would add in the first point that the birds seem to be about more at those times as well.

[wigz]

That is true, and an important point Hans.

[Ralph]

Alan, the point on the early or late golden hours is a good one. As are the others you have mentioned.
There is one thing that I am not sure if I heard it or seen it but it is about overcast skys.
I heard someone say avoid getting bird shot under these conditions. Though I have found that if you get it right in camera you can get the birds to
stand out so well in these conditions. And I for one will make a point of going out in these conditions as I think it really works to highlight the bird.
When I am out in these conditions it is a case of adjusting my setting's to suit the bird and conditions. In this I mean even between shots.

I wish I had a better way to put this down as you have put your points down Alan as I know the way you wrote what you did is easier to read and understand.
So I just hope that what I put do is understood.

[wigz]

Good point Ralph. An overcast day can give a nice soft light. You just need a bright enough day to keep the ISO at a reasonable level.

[wigz]

Another point is to start with suburban parks and gardens where the birds are accustomed to people and you can get closer to them. Birds in the bush usually don’t tolerate a close approach.

[Grumpy John]

Alan makes some excellent points above, but I would add just one thing, and that is to practice on birds in your back yard. They might not be exotic or special, but the techniques required are the same. Much less disappointment or frustration if you get it wrong.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

Hey fellas -- all that is excellent, thank you

Much is as I have already put into words myself, but you have expanded and made the info wider !

As I incorporate new bits into my text, I'will upload it here for you to read as well
Phil

[Ozzie_Traveller]

Okay fellas it's finished and again, THANK YOU to all above who offered thoughts

Isac- What it the upload limit for a PDF to the site??
The text without images is 1-meg, the whole doc with images is 2-1/2 meg
Phil

[Grumpy John]

Phil 2.5MB should be fine.
I have uploaded 2 PDF files in the test area, one 5.5MB and one 12MB.

[Isac]

Hi Phil. Looks like John answered your question.
I may have some really good tips for you with PDF documents, but I firstly need to know how are you creating them.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day all

GJ- Thanks for that test - all okay here too. I have dropped PDF Quality down to 75% and it is now under 1-Meg

For all - The Panasonic forum I write for is an international user's forum and many of the other "user-notes" are a bit crappy and sometimes have errors. At the start of mine is a bio (that you can ignore) just for my street-cred over-there !!

The main article follows along with selected bits from each of you-- so my thanks again to you all

Phil
Photographing birds.pdf

[Grumpy John]

Actually Isac, if you click on the address it opens the AUSPH site. You may have to allow permission.

[Ralph]

I have downloaded this and I need to read it a few times as it has to get through 10 inches of bone in my skull.
From my reading it is informative and this was the aim which this was done for and is well done.
I for one would have no idea on where to start then finish, so I lift me lid to ya on this.
Great job.

[Isac]

Yeah, the link worked from within the downloaded file but nit when viewing it online - all good.
I'd change the flickr links to HTTPS:// from the old HTTP://

[Isac]

Hi Phil, what are you using to create your file and what do you do to produce the PDF file?

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G' day mate

Firstly - thanks for the responses above ... your name was inserted as without you there not be much of a forum for us to enjoy
Secondly - to answer the Q above ... (and I am unsure as to your reasoning for the Q)

I am 100% user of Open Office. The diagrams are created in Office-Draw, the text in Office-Word, and I just click onto "Export as PDF' and follow a few prompts as to All or Partial pages (just like when printing) and What % quality for the output - I usually leave it at 100% but for this task I chose 75% to lessen the size of the PDF file

Does this help?
Phil

[Isac]

It helped a great deal Phil, thanks. I do similar types of creations but use Microsoft Publisher as I can do it all in one program with perfect placement and sizing of all components be it text, graphics or images. That aside, you can save your your PDF at 100% quality and compress them online for free. I use this a lot if I need to really shrink PDF files. As an example, I have been working on files that are in CMYK colour mode for hi resolution printing and it reduced a 5.72MB file to just 505KB! and another from 12.2MB to only 703KB, so about a 94% reduction in fie size with minimum quality loss. Great for uploading and also for fast rendering if viewing online. Try it here and let me know what you think.
https://www.ilovepdf.com/compress_pdf
Rather than saving as a PDF file you can always print to PDF using the Foxit Reader PDF Printer. It's not available as part of the Foxit Reader software any more since version 9.1 - it's so good they now want money for it. It's my goto PDF reader/editor. I can send it to you (or anyone else) to try, let me know. It's a brilliant freebie and many times smaller (and faster) than Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader, which I abandoned many years ago because it takes up over 400MB whereas Foxit is only 60MB