Bird-/wildlife photography
You can find a ton of ressources on bird-/wildlife photography through both Google and YouTube - this is my "2-cent" on how to do decent bird-/wildlife photography almost every time.
Bird-/wildlife photography is kinda a new field within photography for me. It's a quite demanding genre for a photographer as you really have to nail to exposure triangle each time to even have a chance of a sharp image.
Start by going to an area with a lot of people in it - a park, nature resort, etc. The animals are much more use to humans and will make it a lot easier to get close in the beginning.
Gear to remember:
- "Silent" clothing meaning that it needs to fit in to the environment and be as soundless as possible.
- I recommend using clothing for hunting purpose as they are design for the same and have nice weather resistance.
- Tripod and/or monopod.
- I tend to use my monopod more than my tripod for bird-/wildlife photography.
- Lens with a long focal length.
- I use a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 with a 2x extender (makes it f/5.6 and 140-400mm) and I also use a Sigma 150-600m f/5.6-6.3 Sport.
- The general recommendation is to use a fast 1.6-1.7 crop camera house, but to be honest I disagree with this.
- I use a big full frame 50 megapixel camera and when I nail an image, I really NAIL it! Yes, it's a bit limited in the frame rate but the images are much higher resolution and just more dynamic.
Standard camera settings:
- Shoot in RAW
- White balance set to cloudy or around 6000-6500K.
- Use manual mode.
- ISO set to AUTO.
- Your ISO will be high in some situation - don't fear the high ISO, just post-process a bit if the noise is visible when viewing the image 1:1.
- Aperture need to be set to around f/5.8 to f/8 depending on your focal length.
- Above 400mm use f/8 - below 400mm use f/5.6-6.3.
- Shutter speed is the "BIG" thing!
- Use 1/2000 or faster whenever it's possible.
- For birds on the water in low light (sunrise / sunset) I tend to lower the shutter speed to around 1/1000-1/1600 to be able to get a lower ISO but else I always use 1/2000 or faster.
- Use high speed burst for the shutter - the setting where you can hold down your shutter button and the camera keeps taking images.
- Use Servo/Continuous focus program.
- Exposure compensation is set to 0 or +2/3 of a stop.
- I mostly use 0 and keep an eye on the images exposure on the screen.
- If your lens has different intervals of focus then use the longest focus distance.
- My 70-200mm has a focus distance of 1.5m to infinity or 2.5m to infinity - use the 2.5m to infinity for faster focusing.
Focus:
Other: