The following tip has been submitted by Phillip Kirkham, a reader of DPS and avid wildlife photographer - see his own website (the source of all bird photos in this post). You can also read more about him at the end of his article.
How to photograph birds
Unfortunately, July and August are probably the worst months of the year for this task because most species look their worst just now, and also vegetation and food supply is at its best, so it is difficult enough just to see the birds, never mind pointing a lens at them. However, a few helpful tips now should prepare you for the Autumn months when many species are busily eating and hiding food ready for the long winter months ahead.
Perhaps if I take you through the various steps which I make when embarking on a typical bird photographic outing:-
1. Venue, where to visit and when. If my trip is to be a known reserve, then some local knowledge before I set out is invaluable. What species will I encounter? Are there hides available and which way do they face in relation to the sun? How near to the subject I am likely to be? What is the weather forecast for the area I am going?
2. Following on from point 1, if there is no hide available then will I be allowed to erect a temporary one, or can I get near enough to my subject in my car. The vehicle makes a surprisingly useful hide, with many species being quite unafraid of them. So long as you make no fast movements, and I always have the camera pointing out of the window before I approach my subject. Beanbags are particularly useful for this, and here’s a little tip, fill them with sunflower seeds, you can always use a few to attract your subject even closer!
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While the old saying says that ‘curiosity killed the cat’ I’m coming to see that ‘curiosity’ is an incredibly useful characteristic to have as a photographer. Here’s a few reasons why:
because it helps them notice things others are oblivious to - as I was surfing through the last 7 days of interesting photos section on Flickr earlier today, one of the things I noticed most about the photos that I saw there was that very few of them were of out of the ordinary subjects. Rather many of them were stunning images of everyday things that most of us wouldn’t even think to look for beauty in.
because it drives them to find new ways to show ‘normal’ items - another thing I noticed about many of these photos of ordinary everyday subjects was that the photographers found interesting ways to make them look extraordinary. They did this by finding interesting angles, placing their subjects in unusual settings or by experimenting things like focal length (particularly macro shots).
because it drives them to learn about their digital cameras - the last thing I noticed about the shots on flickr was that some of them showed that their photographers had a good grasp of their cameras and how to use them. It was obvious to me that many of the photographers had ventured out of Auto mode and had learned to use other functions of their cameras. There is obviously a lot of experimentation going on with many of the shots - evidence of curious minds wondering what will happen if they just take the shot like this….
curios photographers intrigue the viewers of their images - I’ve got no way of proving this one but it’s a theory I’ve always had. Creative people who are willing to push boundaries and explore new ground tend to be the type of people that others are drawn to. Curious photographers images are attractive because they help the rest of us view the world in new and intriguing ways.
In my last post I introduced the topic of White Balance as a way of ensuring you get accurate colors in your shots.
Of course there are times when photographers do not want accurate colors in their photography. I first discovered the power of this when I bought myself a warm up filter for my film SLR before taking a trip to outback Australia. I used the warm up filter when photographing sunsets and the red rocks and dessert there. The results were quite spectacular. What were already fairly warm tones in my photos became even warmer - in fact they sizzled!
Of course you could go out and buy yourself colored filters for your digital cameras (many allow you to attach them, especially DSLRs) however using White Balance controls on your camera can also impact the colors in your images - not only to correct them but to enhance the look and feel of your shots.
Let me illustrate with three shots I just took of a Camilia in my front yard (excuse the poor composition - it was about to rain so I had to take these quickly):
The first shot was taken with Automatic White Balance mode (AWB) selected. The camera took a guess at what the colors were and it got it pretty much spot on.
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White Balance is an aspect of photography that many digital camera owners don’t understand or use - but it’s something well worth learning about as it can have a real impact upon the shots you take.
So for those of you who have been avoiding White Balance - let me introduce you to it. I promise to keep it as simple as possible and keep what follows as useable as I can:
At its simplest - the reason we adjust white balance is to get the colors in your images as accurate as possible.
Why would you need to get the color right in your shots?
You might have noticed when examining shots after taking them that at times images can come out with an orange, blue, yellow etc look to them - despite the fact that to the naked eye the scene looked quite normal. The reason for this is that images different sources of light have a different ‘color’ (or temperature) to them. Fluorescent lighting adds a bluish cast to photos whereas tungsten (incandescent/bulbs) lights add a yellowish tinge to photos.
The range in different temperatures ranges from the very cool light of blue sky through to the very warm light of a candle.
We don’t generally notice this difference in temperature because our eyes adjust automatically for it. So unless the temperature of the light is very extreme a white sheet of paper will generally look white to us. However a digital camera doesn’t have the smarts to make these adjustments automatically and sometimes will need us to tell it how to treat different light.
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Have you ever been stuck in a rut?
A common problem that many digital photographers face after a while is that they look at the results of their work and find that most of the photos that they’ve been taking look much the same as each other.
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut with your digital photography - always photographing the same subjects, from the same angles, in the same mood, in the same style etc.
Now there’s nothing wrong with having your own style or preference when it comes to subject matter - but it can get a little boring if you don’t mix it up a little from time to time and add some spice into your photography.
Visual Diaries - I was speaking with a semi-professional photographer recently about her work and how she kept it ‘fresh’ and she answered by pulling out a spiral bound art folio. At first I thought it was an album of her work but on opening it I discovered it was a scrapbook - filled with images that others had taken.
This photographer had gotten in the habit of cutting out images that inspired her from newspapers, magazines, advertising brochures, postcards etc. She even printed shots from online to stick in her visual notebook. The other section of her visual notebook was a place for writing and drawing ideas. When she thought of an idea to photograph in the day to day of life she’d make a note of it (or even draw a little sketch to help her remember) so she could come back to it later to do a photo shoot around the idea.
The idea behind the notebook was simply to give her inspiration to try new things. Every time she found herself getting in a rut or searching for an idea to make her work more creative she’d get out her notebook and see what other photographers were doing in terms of subjects, angles, colors, cropping etc. She didn’t directly copy the work of others but in exposing herself to it found that her own work had improved and had a wider and more contemporary appeal.
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I promised when I started this site that I’d do my best to keep it as untechnical and jargon free as possible. Having said this - today I want to use a term that I doubt many beginner digital photographers would be familiar with. Having said this it’s not a complicated concept and one that is very useful.
The term I want to unpack today is EXIF data.
EXIF stands for ‘Exchangeable Image File’ data and it is the information that your camera stores with you image file that tells you about it. It is stored when you take images in JPEG format (or TIFF). Almost all camera manufacturers support EXIF and whether you know it or not your camera is likely to be recording it with your image file.
Perhaps the best way to talk about it is to show you the EXIF data associated with a picture I took this morning of my son (any excuse to show him off). Here’s the shot:
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