Since taking up photography much more seriously over the past 4 years, I’ve found that bird photography is the most challenging… and the most satisfying. Getting close enough for that one-of-a-kind shot or hoping you’ll see that bird again to do better next time. I find my bush walks so much more interesting these days and they pass so quickly, simply because I’m focused on the next bird, rather than where I’m walking or how long I’ve been walking.
This post was published a couple of nights ago by the Digital Photography School and I just had to share it with you. If you’re keen to improve your skills in bird photography it’s worth learning from other photographers. I enjoyed a 2 day workshop last year with Steve Parish, Mark Galer and Darren Leal, and learnt much from the three of them, including processing my shots in a better way. I also now only shoot in RAW and no longer in jpg. Any shots I want to keep can easily be exported to jpg.
An Introduction to Bird Photography
A Guest Post by Lithuanian Photographer Tadas Naujokaitis.
Birds are very interesting creatures, but it’s not so easy to photograph them. Wild birds usually don’t pose where you want and, moreover, it’s often difficult to get close enough to take quality pictures. But if you know some basics of bird photography, it becomes much easier to capture amazing moments of the birds’ life.
Equipment
It’s not necessary to have an expensive camera of lens, however the proper equipment lets to take bird photos easier.
Lens
Most birds are quite shy, so you need at least 200mm (300mm is better) to take pictures of them. Longer focal length not only lets to photograph birds from larger distance, it also gives more blurred background. However more millimeters (or larger aperture) means more expensive, larger and heavier lens. Knowing all that, I think that 400mm f/5.6 lens is the best, if you want to have as much millimeters as possible, not too small aperture and still want to be mobile. Of course, you can make magnificent bird images with 100mm or less, just you should find more courageous birds or compose them to landscape.
Read more…
And here are a couple of shots of my own that I’m happy with.
