Bird photography

PHOTOGRAPHING BIRDS

My favourite kind of bird photography is working from a portable hide, moving in close with my favourite lens (300 mm) and spending hours ensconced, an invisible witness to the comings and goings of the birds going about their daily activities without their being aware of being observed. Much of this kind of photography I’ve done at nests, and in the farming environment where we live this is easy as hides can be set up and left for days without interference. Nest photography calls for special consideration of the welfare of the bird and I usually work a hide in slowly over a day or two, initially setting it up some distance from the nest, then moving it in stages. I make a point of not entering or leaving a hide at a nest unaccompanied. Its all old-fashioned, I know, but it is the sort of photography that I like most. Examples of my ground hide are shown alongside; the same hide is also shown here below on scaffolding at a Black-shouldered Kite nest (which is visible in the tree on the right) and there’s another hide pic shown on the “Jackal Buzzard” page. The hide can be set up anywhere, even on a canoe or fisherman’s float-boat, if need be.

Far more productive in terms of getting lots of images quickly is car-window photography and, of course, I’ve gone this route as well, trawling the quiet country roads for birds that might be within range of the lens. For this I use a bean-bag placed over the door’s open window and I keep both a 300 mm and 600 mm lens at the ready on the seat next to me, each with a camera body attached; the choice of lens depends on the distance of the bird. I have the cameras preset on ISO 200, al-servo focus mode and on the most rapid frames/second setting. The camera equipment that I currently use, all Canon, consists of the 300 mm f2.8 IS lens, the 600 mm f4 IS lens, the 35-350 mm zoom lens, two 50D bodies and one 1Ds mk II body. I also have the 1,4X and 2X extenders and the 580EZ flash and the Visual Echoes Inc. Flash Extender. I take all images on RAW + low-res jpeg, and I use these jpegs to do a quick elimination of the (many) dud pictures. Some of the older images on the website are from pre-digital days and these are scanned transparencies (mostly included on the site for nostalgic reasons ...)

PHOTOGRAPHING DRAGONFLIES

Photographing perched dragonflies is much easier than photographing birds as these creatures are more approachable than birds, and they tend to remain in one position for extended periods. Also, most dragonflies are only out-and-about when it is warm and the light is good, so bad light is not usually a factor to deal with. The three principal things to get right when photographing dragonflies is to ensure that the background is not distracting, that you have sufficient depth of field to get the whole dragonfly in focus, and that you have the creature nicely lit. A frequent problem is wind and, because dragonflies often perch on flimsy stems, movement is usually the main obstacle to deal with. So there’s almost inevitably a trade-off needed between a high shutter-speed to stop movement and a high f-stop to maximise depth of field. I always use a tripod if I can, and the one I use is a small Manfrotto with a Kirk Enterprises ball-head.

I approach the dragonfly slowly, usually aiming for a side-on, slightly above-angle on the dragonfly, and wherever possible I try and seek out a plain background. Because larger species are less approachable than smaller species, I use the 300 mm lens for them, often with a 1.4X extender (and 25 mm extension ring if necessary).

Dragonflies are often perched in bright sunlight, so I use fill-in flash whenever possible to lighten up the creature’s darker areas. The flash (Canon 580 EZ) is set on TTL at -1/3 stop and the camera is set on manual at ISO 200 and 1/250 shutter speed and it uses whatever aperture reading is given by the background. Too much flash results in dark backgrounds which look pretty unnatural in dragonflies.

For the small species (especially damselflies) I use a smaller lens (100 mm or 185 mm macro) and approach much closer, using the camera’s built-in flash for fill-in.

Flying dragonflies are largely a matter of luck, locating an individual that is repeatedly using the same flight path over a water body, setting focus manually on a point along that path and blazing away when it next comes past in the hope that something comes out sharp and in the frame. I use the 300 mm lens handheld for this and I manually set the focus at a point where I think it will fly through, with a high ISO (400-800) and a high shutter speed (1/1000 or faster). Occasionally luck will have the dragonfly hovering repeatedly at a point and then the camera’s auto-focus (on al-servo) will do the trick.