how to photograph birds in action.

Photographing birds is an amazing way to use your camera to the max. Because birds are not the most predictable subject to photograph it is very challenging.

preparation is key.

to photograph birds you must know how birds react an move trough nature. Location is the first big hurdle. photographing a flying bird over an empty field is much easier than a bird in a forest. Also different birds live in these locations. Big buzzards usually  fly around open fields and a great spotted woodpecker in the woods. 

autofocus.

when photographing in the woods you can adjust your auto-focus settings on your camera to make it easier. I use a Nikon d7200 as my main body. this body has the ability to use multiple focus point to set focus. If your background in cluttered whit trees, branches and open spots of sky I would choose the smallest group focusing mode. So you have all the points on the bird it self and not on the background. In an open field the background is the sky so your camera has less problems in figuring out what should be in focus. In such a situation you can us the 3d tracking focusing mode of your camera. If you know before hand in what location you will be in, you could have set up your camera so you wont mist the bird.

back button focusing is (in my opinion) the way to go. In this mode you delink the shutter, exposure lock and de autofocus. the button on the back op your camera (check the manual of your camera on how to turn in on) can be set as focusing button. When you use this button to focus your camera can still change the exposure of your shot. by holding the button pressed in your the focusing system in your camera will track the bird as it flies through the sky.  

What bird?

In order to select your lens it`s handy to know what bird you want to photograph. If you only have one telephoto lens this is a easy choose. Because birds are there in all different sizes you can photograph some of them with a 300mm lens and an other bird at the same distance might be very small in frame. For example you want to photograph a great tit. this is a small bird but you can get close to them. So you can use a 400mm lens if you set up in your garden. Birds in your garden are more used to humans so they will come closer, especially when you have some food in the garden. 

The deeper you go into nature the birds get more nervous of humans. The 150-600mm lenses of tamron and sigma are good lenses to have when you cant get close to a bird but you are on a budget. the Primes of canon and nikon are always good but they are very expansive. 

Time of day.

When are you going to photograph the bird. As a photographer we know that sunrise and sunset the light has a very nice colour. Right around these times birds are the most active. But this also has some cons. like: low light, slow lenses (a f/6.3 let in less light than a f/4 or f/2.8), early getting out of bed and not all birds are active at the same time. This is the moment you need to know what kind of bird you want to photograph. Because a barn owl hunt at night when there is no light and a short eared owl hunt in the day time.

Shutter speed.

a high shutter speed is needed to photograph birds in flight. For large birds with a slow wing movement a 1/1000 should be enough. But small birds like kingfishers are fast moving birds so a 1/2000sec is a minimum. Compensating with a higher ISO is the best ting to do.  For birds that are sitting on a branch you can use a slower shutter speed to get an as clean as possible shot (lower iso).
even though you have a fast shutter speed a tripod can be a great too to get better shots. This is because the lenses are heavy. and with a gimbal head you don't worry about the weight of the lens while you are aiming to get the bird in your frame.  

Weather.

 Selecting in what weather you go out to photograph is important. Simply because a soft light in a bird photograph means there is no feather detail no matter how sharp your lens is. To get sharp images you must have direct light on the bird. This can be done by using a flash. Or by choosing the position from were you photograph. the best way is to have the sun in your back and your shadow pointing towards the bird. By this way to can be sure the face is lit by the light and you need to to les post proces (boosting the shadows). 

Most importent this is to have fun and respect the birds. Never scare a bird so it leaves the nest.  

fighting coots

flying coots

earasian coot

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I am Claes Touber a Dutch Photographer. My photography spreads from landscape photography to wildlife photography. 

These forms of photography give me more opportunities to capture emotions that will for fill me. Every day there is a new opportunity and a new adventure waiting to capture. 

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