Basic Bird Photography in under 200 Words

[Henry Domke]

I've put together a quick summary of ideas for bird photography. Since many of the people on this forum are more experienced than I am I'd love to hear what you would say differently. One of my goals is to keep the explanation as short and simple as possible. Thanks for your thoughts!

Learn more about birds; the more you know the more you see.

Use any of the newer Canon or Nikon DSLR cameras.
Use the longest lens you can afford; at least 400mm. An f/4 500mm or 600mm is best. Buy a tripod and put a gimbal head on it. For birds in flight you can experiment with hand holding; otherwise use a tripod.

Set the exposure mode to aperture priority and select f/8. When hand holding use manual exposure. Use whatever ISO you need to get a shutter speed of at least 1,250/sec; twice that for birds in flight.

Auto-focus on the birds eye using the center spot then re-compose to get the best composition. For fast moving birds and for birds in flight set the camera to servo mode and “high speed”.

Position yourself so that the sun is behind you. Don’t take the picture when the bird is a dot in the frame; wait till it fills at least 25% of the viewfinder. Ideally the bird will be facing toward you with the eyeball tack sharp.

Practice a lot and realize that even after years of experience most of the shots will need to be deleted.

[David Stephens]

I like the ones about keep the sun behind you and practice, but generally we could argue about almost everything else that you say.

For example, "Use any of the newer Canon or Nikon DSLR cameras." It can be done, but trying to shoot birds in flight with a Canon 6D is going to be frustrating. Either commit to hand holding, or don't try at all. Most of us shooting BIF hand hold, but people that have trouble managing the weight need to go with a tripod/gimbal combination.

Manual versus Av mode is more about the background that your subject is moving through than whether you're using a tripod or not. It's close to impossible to single-spot AF on a birds eye and then recompose with a BIF.

You seem to have thought about this a good bit, but you don't have much experience yet. I'd suggest rolling around in the blogs at BPN and some of the older educational threads.

[Henry Domke]

... generally we could argue about almost everything else that you say.

Thanks for your perspective and your experience. I enjoyed looking at the images on your website.