Learning : Photographing Birds

“Learning”

Photographing Birds

Friends,

Pretty birds attract a nature lover quite impulsively. Capturing them through camera is the innate desire of any nature photographer. A few points can help us photographing the birds perfectly.

1. Being a nature lover, our prime aim should be not harming the birds.

2. Before photographing them on a particular location, we have to study their behaviour and activities first. This supports clicking their pictures in a natural manner.

3. We have to position ourselves at a distance or behind a hide so that birds may not get alerted of our presence.

4. The ideal time to click the birds is that of early morning or late evening. The dynamic light of these situations helps in boosting the details and colours of these little creatures.

5. The use of a telephoto lens (such as 300 mm, 400 mm or 500 mm) or a long ranged zoom lens (such as 70-300 mm, 150-500 mm or 170-500 mm) is always recommended. The activities of the birds can be captured from a lengthy distance by using these lenses.

6. The use of high shutter speed (1/500 second or more) is a necessity for bird-photography as the birds are extremely quick in their activities. Here the need of high ISO setting (400 or more) automatically takes birth. Thus the combination of a high shutter speed and a high ISO is a necessity.

7. Due to the swiftness of birds, we should set our camera at continuous shooting and continuous focusing modes for all time. These modes help out during clicking flying birds. Applying these features and panning the camera properly will lead us towards perfect capture of these small beings.

8. Lastly, “the right click at a right moment” (with aesthetic sense) is the key to photograph the birds aptly.

--Dr. Pankaj Sharma