[robimahanta]

It’s been a long time since I posted a photography travelogue (photologue as I like to call it). I have been doing a fair amount of nature photography over the last twelve years or so and it involves a lot of travel. However due to the ongoing pandemic, travel has been severely hampered over the last one year. I decided to try bird photography from a hide (blind) within Karnataka over the last few months.

A good friend of mine has some bird hide set ups and it was great fun to be able to shoot various endemic species of birds from these hides. These places are not in any protected reserves rather they are private properties. They are not open to all and I am sorry that I will not be able to share the exact locations. Having said that, if you are birding since some time in Karnataka then I am sure you will be able to figure it out. Photography from a hide (especially birds) may not be to everyone’s liking but it’s been done all over the world since ages. So let us not get into the ethics of it.

There are quite a few advantages and disadvantages of photographing from a hide. I will be sharing some details in this photologue.

I visited three bird hides within Karnataka (there are quite a few more) and will be sharing images from all three of them. Without further ado lets gets to the images and the boring stuff regarding pro and cons, tips and tricks etc. can follow later for those who are interested.

Bangalore Hide (Outskirts of Bangalore)

From inside the hide



The result Tickkell's blue flycatcher



Tit



Bathing



Sunbird on a flower perch







Flameback woodpecker, the frame is a little too tight due to prime telephoto restrictions



Feeding a juvenile




Koel, its always tricky to get the exposure right on a black bird. Metering mode plays a big role



Indian White Eye (formerly oriental White Eye), these are probably the most common birds seen from the hide



Fighting over the perch





In the rain



Pair of Red whiskered Bulbul's, love the head angle and the clean background. This is the reason not to ignore the common birds.



Solo one



With a berry



Coppersmith Barbet, probably the most common bird call we hear



Portrait with berries



Having an argument



Fantail



Reflection



Rufous Treepie




White browed Bulbul portrait



Oriole



Jerdon's leaf bird



Quail with chicks

[robimahanta]

Shimoga Hide

This one is just for parakeets.

Plum headed parakeet portraits and some flight shots. The females have a grey head.





Two of my favourites











Trying to dance




Malabar Parakeets, these are slightly bigger and less colourful
















Both the plum headed and malabar together




A dreamy monochrome early morning of a tree with cormorants in the distance. Whenever there is no activity in the hide you tend to keep your self busy with other random photo ops




Getting flowers to set the perch



Ready to fire away



The hide from parakeet perspective



Snipers are ready

[robimahanta]

Kodagu Hide

Red whiskered Bulbul bath



Jerdon's Leaf Bird male



Grey headed Bulbul symmetry, this is a species endemic to western ghats






Call



After a shower



Puff throated babbler



Three white eye musketeers



Taking a bath



Time for a portrait



Sharing a secret



Puffed up



A large group



Grey headed bulbul ruining the party



White breasted blue flycatcher female



White Cheeked Barbet



Drenched racquet tailed drongo



Breaking the norm and trying some blur



Dark fronted Babbler



Spotted dove reflection, bit too tight again for a prime telephoto.



Yellow browed Bulbul



Fulvetta



Rufous Babbler, another western ghats endemic



Monarch female



White bellied treepie, quite a large bird and very tricky to frame



White rumped Shama male



Female one

[robimahanta]

Treepie was out of focus with a larger aperture



Quick change of settings and there is improvement in the image



Emerald Dove image with a less than ideal head angle



Better and more pleasing head angle (a very high ISO image hence noisy)



The perch and the water bath in the Kodagu hide



The view of the hide from the perch



Inside the hide: its hot, humid, full of mosquitoes, lizards and bugs



How can we forget the cars, after all this in an automotive forum. I do not own an SUV or a high ground clearance vehicle, so all my trips were in the 3er or the Polo. I have seen that if you are slow and careful these cars can manage a lot of bad roads. The only issue is mud and slush.

The 328i served me well in a lot of dirt tracks with passengers and camera gear. Looking forward to many more trips with the M340i now.





The little GTi is my off roader, thanks to the short wheelbase






That’s all for the images.


Now the boring part..

Let’s discuss some advantages of hide photography.

•Most hides are set up for photographers. Background, perches, light etc. are all taken in to account while the set up is made. These places are mostly set up by photographers so you can get eye level shots with a clean background (bokeh) very easily.

•It’s possible to photograph multiple species by just sitting in one place for hours.

•A lot of experimentation from a photography aspect can be carried out as the subjects are in plenty.

•A permanent hide is well camouflaged into its surroundings, which is a boon for birding.

•Hides allow birds to be photographed in their natural surroundings without being disturbed

Coming to the disadvantages

•It may not seem ethical for some people especially if attractants like fruits, flowers etc. is used.

•It can get boring if there is no activity as you are sitting is one place for hours peeping through the view finder. The process involves a lot of patience. This is definitely not your regular family trip.

•May not be accessible to all. Most hides work on references among the local birding fraternity. Though there are a few which are open to everyone.


Some Do’s and Don’ts

•Do not try to move around or switch seats inside the hide. Maintain as much silence as possible. Birds are very shy creatures and fast movements or noise will scare them easily. This is especially important if you are in a group.

•Do not wear bright colours and all movements should be slow and smooth. This does not mean you need to wear camouflage gear but anything plain and dull is fine. The point is not to stick out like a sore thumb in a red shirt.

•Carry water bottles along with you always along with some light snacks. Sometimes you need to sit inside for hours together. Please do not leave water bottles and snack packets inside the hide once the session over.

•Always carry a tripod, extra battery as well as memory cards.

Some tips and tricks of bird photography which I have found to be useful.

Know your subject

It all depends on anticipation. If you know how the bird is going to behave then you will have better action images. If there is a water bath below a perch, some birds will fly down to it from the perch and then again back to the perch.

Don’t ignore the common subjects. Even a bulbul in good light can be great subject. Thing is that you need to decide whether your aim is to see more species of birds (binoculars and a checklist is better for this) or take better pictures.

Get close to your subject in a slow and calm manner (not possible in a hide).

Be aware of the season and weather too. Just because your leaves got approved in the monsoons or if you have a weekend off doesn’t mean you will get to see all the birds during that time.

High speed bursts

The moment we see a bird, we start firing in Continuous mode. With newer mirrorless cameras and silent electronic shutter with high fps, this can fill up memory cards in no time. We are always anxious to take a picture before the bird flies away. This is fine if it’s a rare bird and you need to document that you have seen it. But it becomes a pain to choose a good image later and most images just use up HDD space. A pleasing photograph has much more to it. The light, background, head angle, catch light in the eye etc. all adds to the drama of a nice image. Take your time and press the shutter button. Be a minimalist, ten good images from a trip is worth more than gigabytes of junk. Sometimes if the conditions are not ideal, then don’t shoot at all. Just keep the camera aside enjoy the scene.

Camera gear and settings

Be aware of the camera settings all the time. It is a very dynamic thing as light keeps changing all the time. Even when you move the frame a few inches, the settings may have to be changed. Apart from your usual aperture, shutter speed and ISO, the focus points and metering mode matters too. One very important setting is exposure compensation. I usually shoot in Aperture mode with an EV of negative 0.3 all the time. I shoot RAW and its relative easy to recover shadows than blown out highlights. Keep checking the settings every now and then and even while looking through the view finder. Eventually it will be muscle memory and you will be able to change settings while still looking through the view finder. This is the reason you must be very familiar with your camera body.

I have been using Canon for over twenty years and I am planning to stick to it in the future too. Often other brands come out with great cameras and a lot of people keep switching brands. The problem is that you need to learn the UI all over again. I would much rather take a slightly noisy image than take a blurry image with a stop of extra dynamic range and less noise. Gear does matter in nature photography; it is not about owning the latest and greatest but that it may help you to capture that difficult image that would be almost impossible with more basic equipment. Professional lenses hold value and can be used for a long time if well maintained. I am using the same telephoto prime since 2012 and it has helped me take numerous decent images. If you are worried about not using your gear often then renting is a great option.

Full frame cameras are great (although expensive). This is not to say crop-sensor cameras are bad for wildlife photography. Just don’t be swayed into buying expensive crop-sensor camera if you already have a full frame option. Better to invest your effort into learning bird behaviour and improving your camera technique (autofocus and exposure settings). That goes a lot further than a 1.5x or 1.4x crop – and the loss of high ISO image quality it brings – toward improving your photos.

Lastly, a lot of luck is involved in bird photography. If you get the picture of the species you seek, then great. If not, don’t get disappointed, rather enjoy what you are doing. I guess end of the day you may get a million likes for an image in social media but if you are not enjoying the process of capturing an image then it’s a futile exercise.

I have put forward most of the things which has helped me over the years to take better bird photographs. I may have missed a few things and have purposefully left out the lens and camera choices as there are already endless debates about those topics if you wish to partake.

Thanks to Viddy and Dr.AD for all the help and encouragement. Its been ages since I compiled photos for a TBHP thread. Hopefully can post more travel/photo stuff as the world opens up. Do let me know if there are any mistakes or suggestions in the comments. This photologue may seem little haphazard and hopefully I will improve over time in my descriptions.

Happy birding!
RoBi

[Vid6639]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

Awesome pics Robi. The photos are like wallpaper stuff!

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by robimahanta

It’s been a long time since I posted a photography travelogue (photologue as I like to call it). I have been doing a fair amount of nature photography over the last twelve years or so and it involves a lot of travel. However due to the ongoing pandemic, travel has been severely hampered over the last one year. I decided to try bird photography from a hide (blind) within Karnataka over the last few months.

Wow! What an amazing report with such fantastic photography! Your photos are some of the best I have seen on this forum. Thank you very much for sharing this.

I have read your old travelogues and they were such a treat to read. I am so glad you decided to write again. I am sure we will read more from you in near future. This is really an inspirational stuff for all of us.

For someone like me, things like hide photography where totally new and I would have never known about this if not from someone like you. These things are known only in specific circles and the common people like us never get to know this. Thanks for bringing this out for us. I am sure this is not everyone's cup of tea, but thanks to reports like this at least we will get "on paper" experience of such things.

The 328i served me well in a lot of dirt tracks with passengers and camera gear. Looking forward to many more trips with the M340i now.

Nice to see some car photos too. This makes it perfect for us. Great bird photographs and some cars too. Looking forward to seeing your M340i on some birding trip next :-)

Some tips and tricks of bird photography which I have found to be useful.

Know your subject

High speed bursts

Camera gear and settings

Thank you for sharing these tips. For a beginner photographer like me, these tips are invaluable. I thought these tips were great for us for any photography in general, and not just for bird photography. I have read many reports with great photographs, but apart from a "wow" factor, those do not help the reader much. But such reports with not only great photos but also some tips about how to take those, are really invaluable for the reader.

But it becomes a pain to choose a good image later and most images just use up HDD space. A pleasing photograph has much more to it. The light, background, head angle, catch light in the eye etc. all adds to the drama of a nice image. Take your time and press the shutter button. Be a minimalist, ten good images from a trip is worth more than gigabytes of junk.

Haha. Very well said. I have done this exact mistake (of shooting gigabytes of junk) on many occasions. This is an example of why I said your tips are valuable to us in any photography. My next goal now is to go on a photography trip and come back with less than 50 decent images instead of 500 random images :-)

Thanks again for taking efforts to document this and sharing these awesome photos. Rated well-deserved 5-stars and I hope this is just the first of many such travelogues to come from you in near future.

[megazoid]

Can only say wow! A superb collection of shots. The ideas around nailing a good picture is very helpful even though it will take time to put this into practice and that point about the knowing your camera body is so very true. Most time is wasted in fumbling for the right menus at the most inappropriate time. I really liked the point of view of sitting and enjoying the process than taking this up as an academic challenge. A refreshing read indeed.
btw, the GTI shots look great too. Did you treat it like a bird while clicking

[graaja]

Wow! Just Wow!

Fantastic pictures of the birds and also a very good write-up covering the basics of hide photography and birding. Thanks a lot for sharing.

[megazoid]

Had few queries around the hide itself.

1. Who makes and maintains it?
2. Do you also sleep inside for early morning birding assuming these places are a little inside and may take time to reach?
3. How is a place chosen? Would you know that bird activity will be there prior to the making of the hide?
4. What is the typical distance to the perch from the hide?
5. Is the activity mostly in the mornings and evenings or they last throughout the day?

[robimahanta]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Wow! What an amazing report with such fantastic photography! Your photos are some of the best I have seen on this forum..

Thanks a lot AD for the kind words. Looking forward to more driving and wildlife trips with you.

Originally Posted by megazoid

Can only say wow! A superb collection of shots. ..the GTI shots look great too. Did you treat it like a bird while clicking

Thanks Hari. Glad you liked the images. The GTi is as lovely as any bird, so deserves attention. The non bird images are all with the phone though

Originally Posted by graaja

Fantastic pictures of the birds and also a very good write-up covering the basics of hide photography and birding

Thanks a bunch Ganesh

Originally Posted by megazoid

Had few queries around the hide itself.

1. Who makes and maintains it?
2. Do you also sleep inside for early morning birding assuming these places are a little inside and may take time to reach?
3. How is a place chosen? Would you know that bird activity will be there prior to the making of the hide?
4. What is the typical distance to the perch from the hide?
5. Is the activity mostly in the mornings and evenings or they last throughout the day?

1. The friend of mine who is an avid birder for years makes it. He usually sets it up in a private property (mostly farmers, coffee estate workers) who in turn maintains it.

2. We sleep in the house of the person who maintains it or in a nearby homestay if it is a bigger group.

3. This needs lot of planning. The guy who makes the hide travels extensively searching for bird activity, hearing bird calls etc. and finally chooses a location.

4. Again depends on the species of birds. But usually it is 30-50 feet.

5. Mostly in the evening. Again depends on the direction of light. Some hides are set up for morning while others are for evening.

[sukiwa]

Thoroughly enjoyed all photos especially birds in flight.
Were you using 800mm?

[am1m]

Best bird photos I've seen!

As you correctly say, good reason not to ignore the common birds- your capture of behavior, superb compositions, and attention to exposure to get the colouring right make even the photos of the common species stand out and a joy to see! Thank you so much for sharing.

You mentioned that some people might think hide photography is not ethical (or sporting I guess). But considering how other (so-called) wildlife photographers behave (chasing tigers in SUVs, trashing the place, roaming across forests in big groups making noise and creating their own trails, being ultra-competitive just to get 'rare' bird species shots and bragging rights), I think your hide photography option is a wonderful, non-intrusive idea!

[robimahanta]

Originally Posted by sukiwa

Thoroughly enjoyed all photos especially birds in flight.
Were you using 800mm?

Thanks. It's a 600mm.

Originally Posted by am1m

Best bird photos I've seen!
You mentioned that some people might think hide photography is not ethical (or sporting I guess). But considering how other (so-called) wildlife photographers behave (chasing tigers in SUVs, trashing the place, roaming across forests in big groups making noise and creating their own trails, being ultra-competitive just to get 'rare' bird species shots and bragging rights), I think your hide photography option is a wonderful, non-intrusive idea!

Thanks. It is unfortunate that most parks are after tiger tourism. I guess that is what generates the most revenue. It is indeed funny to see people in complete camouflage gear with super telephoto lenses in a loud jeep racing down forest tracks in search of tigers (especially in the central india parks).

[anshurao]

Excellent pics, enjoyed watching them and very well written. Thank you!!

[mugen_pinaki27]

Simply wow. Your pictures are an ornithologist's wet dream. Thank you Sir for sharing such amazing pictures of our winged friends. Its always a treat to see your amazing photography skills bring out the best of nature and its inhabitants. Cheers!