Various birds P3

Some more bird captures from Lochwinnoch RSPB nature reserve and Dumfrieshire.

1)Brambling


2)Blue tit


3)Goldfinch


4)Red Kite


5)Chaffinch


6)Redpoll


7)Chaffinch


8)Chaffinch


9)

Great Set!

I love Kytes, and eagles too

Some crackers in that - love 9

very nice................

Grant, your having a big influence on me at the moment because after seeing your wonderful bird posts, I want to try this for myself. It is not in my normal area of photography, but it looks as though it could be a good challenge.

Any tips for any one setting up this kind of capture?

BTW another great series AGAIN

I don't know much about birds but these appear to be a lovely set of captures.

Thanks Ken. I would suggest setting up some bird feeders in your garden with various bird seed and setting up some kind of hide, e'g scrim netting or a dedicated portable bird hide which can cost upwards of £50. If you do not have a garden or there are no birds around, I'd suggest to visit your nearest RSPB reserve which may have a bird hide.

Thats the easy part, next is to capture them in flight which will require a lot of practice and some patience too. Ideally you want to setup some perches next to the feeders for the birds to land on and take off from (use feeders without perches) and you will want to use at least double the focal length for your exposure (use exposure priority or manual which I use mostly now for birds) i'e if you are using a 200mm lens then make sure your exposure is at least 1/400 second unless you are using a tripod and require more movement/motion in your shot. I don't normally use anything less than 1/1250 sec with my 400mm lens unless i'm going for something other than BIF. I like to keep the aperture above 5.6 and prefer f8 depending on background and available light, I also try to keep the ISO no higher than 640 (best with my 50d) All of my bird shots are taken hand held as I find a tripod very restrictive for these type of shots. Most people I know who take these type of shots down at Lochwinnoch tend to use a tripod and focus manually then fire and hope for the best, I have my own technique which I find much more rewarding.

I use back af button and have setup custom functions to separate metering from focus, e'g focus and track subject with af back button then take shot and it's metered at point of capture, not focus. I use it with A1 servo (continuous focussing) to track birds hovering in flight. You can lock the focus in A1 servo mode just by taking finger off back af button and re-compose. I activate all focus points while doing this type of shooting too.

Nearly forgot to add that I use both eyes while preparing for these captures (easier said than done), my right eye looking through viewfinder and my left eye to see where the birds are coming from to anticipate the the moment before landing. It takes a bit of practice but you get used to it very quickly.

Hope this helps you out a wee bit

Thank you BC

Thank you so much for posting up all that info, these are just the sort of details I'm looking for and help to de-mistify how it's done.

It's very interesting that some of the techniques you use is very similar to what I use for some of the air display photography I do. The use of both eye's for example, I'll follow the main air craft in the view finder but keep opening my other eye from time to time to make sure I'm not missing anything from the wing aircrafts.

Also the rear focus button is another favourite of mine when tracking something.

I have a number of bird feeders and the perches will unclip, so I will get to work and have a try at this.

You'll know if it was a resounding failure... there will be a load of Canon gear in the "for sale section"

Super set again Grant and thanks for the follow up posts regarding the details.

Ken - no excuses with your gear mate - patience and 'field craft' should never be under estimated though.

I got into photographing birds quite recently (when I was homebound) and despite not really changing my gear I've found that my shots have improved a lot over the last year simply by getting to know how the birds act - which direction they come from, where they land, what time of day they come, what they like to eat, how long they stay during each visit, how nervy each species is to movement or noise etc..

A big factor is also where you place your feeders and landing twigs in relation to the direction of light, where you place yourself and the time of day you're likely to be shooting etc.

It's very addictive though !