re: Birding at its best - "Updated for Jan 2013 visit" Quote:
Originally Posted by mayuresh Great photos Neo. Thanks for all the information. Never heard of this place, despite being a long timer in Pune.
Wildlife photography itself is challenging and birds in particular even more so. Could you write a bit of tips and tricks, the gadgets that are useful etc. If you don't mind, what kind of camera did you use et. |
Well, I am not an expert for sure. This was my first Birding trip in my photography career of an year ![Smile](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.png) . However, I would like to share the following thoughts, it would be great if it helps you.
1. Gear: Canon 1100D and 100-400 L lens with its hood
2. I used partial metering most of the time (Spot metering is not available on my camera). This was used for good exposure on the bird than the entire scene.
3. When I was shooting birds in flight, I used shutter speed of 1/1000 or more. I was not particular about the Aperture since most of the time there was not any background to blur it and achieve bokeh. So most of the pics are shot in "TV" mode (S in Nikon)
4. For birds sitting on branch/in the shallow water, I tried to use fast shutter with large aperture to achieve a good crisp pic and nice bokeh to minimize the clutter
5. For single birds in flight, I used all focusing points and for multiple birds, I used the center focusing point
6. My camera was always in the AI servo mode which keeps on focusing continuously and always used the continuous shooting mode. Most of the time I clicked at least 7-8 images of the same bird and then decided on one which is nice and crisp. My ISO was always set to 200, post this my camera sucks. The noise is amplified after 200 ISO.
7. I retouched the pics in lightroom for cropping and minor adjustment for the contrast and exposure if its not good.
Well, these are the points which worked for me. There is NO right or wrong method for photography. Its difficult to achieve a good composition in bird photography since you can not ask them to sit at any particular location. Go with your gut feeling and crop whenever necessary.
There are so many photography experts on this forum. I always liked pics posted by "amolpol" on this forum. His birding pics are just awesome. I hope he would visit the thread and guide us all to improve on our skills.
Last edited by neoonwheels : 3rd January 2013 at 09:48.
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