Bird Photography Tutorial | Gear, Settings and Composition Tips

hi i'm charles from pangolin photo safaris and this video is all about bird photography shooting birds can be quite intimidating to beginner photographers and many gives up if they don't succeed straight away but if you give yourself a chance by following a few easy tips i guarantee you you will be rewarded with beautiful bird images in this video i'll share with you a few basic tips to get started in bird photography from what gear you should be using explain settings and what to look out for to get that composition right and making use of light to get creative i'll also share with you my favorite autofocus mode and will illustrate my tips on photos i've taken out in the field let's first have a look at what camera gear you need to get started in bird photography focal lens plays a big role as in most cases you can't get too close to a bird without chasing it away so the longer the focal lens you have the easier it will be to get a good bird image the minimum focal length that i recommend is 400 millimeters please keep in mind that the effective focal length will depend on what camera you use let's take a 400 millimeter lens for an example if you would use full-frame camera you will have 400 millimeter focal length if you would be making use of a crop sensor camera you need to take the crop factor in consideration different cameras will have different crop factors you can get for example aps-c sensors which is 1.5 or 1.6 so you need to multiply the 400 with the 1.5 or 1.6 let's take example canon aps-c sensor is 1.6 will give you then a focal length of 640 millimeters you also get micro four third camera bodies which means you need to take two time crop in consideration so this one means 400 millimeter length will become 800 so you can see in bit photography aps-c or your crop sensor cameras can be a big advantage for you as your focal lens increases 400 millimeters can still be a bit short when shooting those smaller birds unless you can get very close by shooting out of a height for example around 600 millimeter focal length are great but don't worry if you're a beginner as there are great options out there without breaking the bank tamron and sigma have 150 to 600 millimeter zoom which are great value for money and ideal for bird photography combine any of these two lenses with a crop sensor body and you have almost a thousand millimeters essential for capturing great bird images is having a camera with a fast frame rate this will make sure that you can nail the birds in flight or bird catching food i found that from seven frames upwards are good obviously the faster the better please keep in mind that in order to use the highest frame rate your camera offers you you will need to set it up on high speed continues and also make sure to have a fast reading and writing memory card inserted as tempting it might be just staying on auto and snap away i suggest ditch that auto mode as you had no control of what your camera reading or setting will be and this will lead into more amateur looking images instead getting more comfortable with one of the manual settings like aperture priority or shutter speed priority and then make use of exposure compensation imagine you have a sighting where a bright bird is situated against a dark background if you shoot in auto mode the bird will most likely look overexposed and washed out without any details if you shoot in any of the semi-automatic modes however you are now able to tell your camera to underexpose and you will have a correctly exposed bird this concept that we call exposure compensation is only possible when getting off auto mode the shutter speed is another very important factor when photographing birds so often i see people having unsharp images mainly because the shutter speed was too slow so instead of making the camera decide what shutter speed you need you can shoot on shutter speed priority and have full control of the shutter speed you need for specific situations a good guideline for minimum shutter speed is equal your focal length for example if you have a 400 millimeter lens then your minimum shutter speed should be 400 of a second please keep in mind that your minimum shutter speed will change when you put this 400 millimeter length on a crop sensor as you have to take the crop factor into account too please note that this rule only applies if you shoot handheld without the use of a tripod or image stabilization so this should be your very minimum shutter speed if the ambient light is good double the shutter speed so around 800 of a second which will even increase your success rate of a sharp image when there is behavior or action happening like a bird that is taking off or two birds fighting then use a minimum shutter speed of 2000 of a second this will freeze most movement but again if the light is strong you can even crank it up to 3200 of a second which will help to get that image that sharp a small tip here is the smaller the bird the faster the body and the wings will move so for tiny kingfishers in flight if the light allows it i will put up my shutter speed all the way up to 5 000 of a second so now we've talked about shutter speed what about aperture if you choose to shoot in shutter speed priority your camera will automatically select an aperture depending on what shutter speed you've selected this can be all quick fix but it also has the disadvantages as aperture plays also very significant role the aperture control the depth of field so how much of the bird and the background will be in focus most of the time we aim for these beautiful buttery smooth backgrounds and a wide aperture can help us with that so you could also shoot an aperture priority mode where you are in full control of the depth of field but what about the shutter speed in aperture priority the camera will select automatically the shutter speed and can only indirectly be controlled by increasing or decreasing your aperture and or either you see that it gets quite complicated here because of any of the shooting methods you have to compromise by controlling either aperture or the shutter speed but since we've established that both aperture and shutter speed is important is there another method of shooting except full manual glad you asked my preferred way of shooting in bird photography or any wildlife is manual with autoizer now i can have full control over my aperture and my shutter speed and my camera will take care of my iso please take note that i only recommend this mode if your camera can still then do exposure compensation with it the older models might not be able to do it so please make sure to see if your camera can do it if your camera isn't able to do so stick them with aperture priority or shutter speed priority and just learn yourself how to regulate your aperture and shutter speed by using your iso if you would like to know more about manual or iso look in the link up here where sabine have a great video explaining manual with autoizer understanding bird behaviour will help a lot in your bird photography know when and where certain birds are nesting this will enable you to wait at the right location to get great shots in flight carrying nesting material or bringing food to the cheeks most birds also poo before take off which gives you a good indication when to be ready for a good lift off flying photo bigger birds like to fly into the wind when they fly away from a branch for example so having the wind from behind you will help that the birds will fly into your direction try and avoid any busy backgrounds at any cost branches and sticks in the background distract the viewer's eye away from the bird sometimes by moving around a bit you might be able to have a better more simple background here's another great example of this little outlet on a branch by just by moving a little bit to the left my background changed completely shooting straight up you end up having boring blue or white background so try and avoid that if possible my favorite is to go low and get on eye level with the birds as this is much more engaging and helps to create a nice blurry background be careful not to zoom in too close especially on large birds for when they fly without the warning otherwise you might be very likely to clip off the wings of the bird try and use the rules of thirds and give the bird space to breathe usually it works best framing the bird on the opposite side to its case sabina has a detailed video on rules or thirds and other techniques that you can watch just by clicking on the link up here if a bird's feeds hidden in the grass give it space as well don't crop it off just because you can't see it clearly look also out for the catch light in the eye of the bird and try to have eye contact if possible or at least have the head parallel or angled towards you if the bird's head is slightly angled away the image is far less engaging you can also mix it up by using different zoom take one where you can include some of the environment to give the photograph sense of space and time then take a full body portrait shot of the bird and if you have enough zoom you can create a close-up revealing nice details my preferred autofocus area for birds and wildlife in general is a single focus point which gives me the greatest accuracy with the single autofocus point make sure to move it onto the eye of the bird or at least as close as possible as you want the eye to be the sharpest point in the image this is especially important when shooting on a wide aperture as the depth of field will be very shallow if you are close to the bird using a larger autofocus area or the automatic autofocus selection mode that you can find on many cameras can come in handy in some situations but this can also ruin many shots when the camera focus maybe on the tip of the wings or on foliage around the bird and that might leave you having the bird eye or head unsharp since autofocus systems can become quite complex i suggest you watch this excellent video in this link up here about the autofocus system of cameras although this video is orientated more about canon cameras the principle of most dslrs are the same we all know the best time to photograph anything is during the golden hour of the morning and late afternoon where the subject is beautifully lit without any harsh shadows most of the time we position ourselves to have the sun behind us but instead of always using this way to eliminate the bird try use the light for some creative photography shooting into the setting sun can give you great results by either creating stunning silhouettes against warm colored skies or getting some rim light around the bird highlighting its shape in low light you can experiment with some slow exposure where you can partially blur the bird and only have the face or the eye in focus this is difficult but great technique to show the motion of the bird and make it looks less frozen in this image a pie king feature is hovering over the water since only the wings were rapidly moving while the body was fairly static i could use a slow shutter speed of a 50th of a second to show the motion in the wings while freezing the face slow shutter speeds are also great to pan with a bird flying parallel to you this way again the motion is clearly visible and the emis get the rather artistic look to compare here is a yellow build stalk in flight with a fast shutter speed and in contrast in this image i use the panning technique if you like to learn more about panning you can look up the link here i made a video dedicated to this topic and these are my favorite tips for bird photography if you'd like to add anything or have some suggestions please leave it in the comments down below and if you like the video give us a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to our channel if you like more help about wildlife photography thank you for watching and i really hope to see you soon on safari in the description down below there's a link where you can join me on safari if you like and until next time bye bye

Channel: Pangolin Wildlife Photography

Views: 29,363

Rating: 4.9767594 out of 5

Keywords: bird photography camera settings, bird photography focusing tips, bird photography techniques, bird photography tips, bird photography tips and tricks, bird photography tips for beginners, bird photography tips for the serious photographer, bird photography tutorial, learn bird photography, small bird photography, small bird photography tips, nature photography, wildlife photography, wildlife photography tips, pangolin photo safaris, photographing birds

Id: VSv3gvDLKOY

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021