are birds really that hard to shoot?

shaylou

shaylou

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Shayne
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I'm new at photography so I thought I would give the bird picture thing a try. After all there are plenty of them around my house right! Well perhaps but at the moment I am being out smarted by birds.. these little guys are not only fast but there very bashful. Can someone give me a few pointer, (how to get a lot of them to come eat the food I set out would be a good place to start).
I'm using canon t3i with 17-55 2.8 lens. Thanks.
 
There is no way in particular to get loads of them in your garden shaylou. All you can do is study which species are around and try to accomodate them with the right type of food. You will need to set some feeders up of coarse and try to position them with the light source coming from behind where you will be. A simple natural perch for them is also a good idea and to put as much distance as possible between the subject and background to avoid too much distraction in the final shot. You may of coarse go for a shot with the bird behaving naturaly in amongst the shrubs or trees if you have any. As for photographing them with a 55mm, unless you can get in relatively close then you will struggle to get decent images of them, but that again will depend on what is about at the time, your Robins and Blackbirds can get quite used to you and oblige by coming in fairly close. A simple search about photographing garden birds will turn up more advice tips and tricks for you to study.
 
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I agree with Rich's comments.

If you want a more natural look than the usual feeders try drilling a few holes on a dead branch and packing them with sunflower hearts, peanuts, suet. If you position this carefully the holes won't be visible.

In our garden the most liked seeds are sunflower hearts but if you want to get some birds closer, try live meal worms. When they get used to the situation, Robins and Great Tits will come very close.

Dave
 
u8myufo said:
As for photographing them with a 55mm, unless you can get in relatively close then you will struggle to get decent images of them, but that again will depend on what is about at the time, your Robins and Blackbirds can get quite used to you and oblige by coming in fairly close. A simple search about photographing garden birds will turn up more advice tips and tricks for you to study.
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Unless you get one of these visit, yep it's a rubbish picture but was taken at 5am standing right outside the patio window :eek:

and that white thing on the grass is one of my fish :bang:

heron.jpg
 
Thanks for your help. Today I out smarted the birds. I opened the front window, covered all but the end of the lens with a black sheet and waited. Sure enough they came right up to me (about 5 feet away). Even with that distance together with not so good lighting it was a struggle. I added some light but I could use some more so I can stop my lens down and improve the sharpness and widen the dof. I plan to add more light next time and hopefully get a shoot that's worth sharing. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks again
 
shaylou said:
Thanks for your help. Today I out smarted the birds. I opened the front window, covered all but the end of the lens with a black sheet and waited. Sure enough they came right up to me (about 5 feet away). Even with that distance together with not so good lighting it was a struggle. I added some light but I could use some more so I can stop my lens down and improve the sharpness and widen the dof. I plan to add more light next time and hopefully get a shoot that's worth sharing. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks again
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That`s another one hooked :D See you over in the Bird Forum :lol:
 
If you have a tripod and a remote shutter release you could set the camera up very close to feeder. The birds will get used to it and probably rest on it, so unless you want a camera with an attractive streaked pattern some sort of cover could be useful.

Dave
 
It is indeed a scary condition. I started doing this in January and I am an addict. I started with one feeder, now have two, and originally just got Blue Tits which I found exciting. 4 months later I just looked outside and I have 4 greenfinches and 3 goldfinches fighting over the feeders and they're emptying both inside 2 days but it's just not good enough. I am seeking more thrills. I need a bigger buzz.

How do I attract Golden Eagles and perhaps Condors into my 20ft x 15ft garden?
 
It's bloody addictive ,,,,,,,,,,,,,got about 10 feeders posistioned around the garden now including 3 on a stand outside the conservatory windows,

Great fun though
 
For me it's incredibly hard to shoot birds with a 70-200 and when I have the chance to shoot with something better they are normally gone :( I'm not that literate into the bird world but I've seen an amazingly beautiful bird last week that I've never seen before and of course my camera was at home :D The thing is my house does not have a backyard and I count only on my walks in the park on my way to work :)
 
The standard lenses for wildlife tend to be the 500mm f 4, 400 f2.8, 300 f2.8. all of them big, heavy and expensive. For Canon users 2 good starter lenses are the 100 - 400mm or the 400 f5.6. These come in around the £1000 mark new. The reason these are the 'standard' lenses is because they are relatively fast and keep you a reasonable working distance from the subject but not nearly as far as people might think (this is also why they are expensive and heavy and come with a year's membership of a gym of your choice).

Any cheaper alternatives will do the job but at the expense of speed and IQ. Photography, like all of life, is a compromise. Your standard zoom lens will take good photographs of wildlife, but your fieldcraft will have to be good enough to get you close enough to apply mascara to a frog's eyelashes.

If you are a Canon user and might be contemplating a super zoom (500, 600, or 800) please note that bought new, the Mk II versions are nearly twice the price of the outgoing Mk I versions.
WEX are advertising the new 600mm at £10,999. ROFLMAO.
 
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sorry nothing constructive to add except ......my name is gareth and i am a birdaholic, seriously i am just starting to get into bird/wildlife photography, and i already have a pot put aside for.... feeders, portable hide, seed, etc. :lol:
 
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