Bird photography (2)
Shutter speed and white balance
A fast shutter speed is the baseline for camera settings in a zoomed range. If your camera has it, use the shutter priority mode.
My preference for shutter speed is at 1/800th of a second to freeze most actions. If the subject is in the shade with expected small movements (eg. feeding/preening), a slower shutter speed such as 1/200th second can be used. This allows the aperture to open up further for more light. If blur occurs, increase the shutter speed.
Another way to maintain a high shutter speed in non-ideal light conditions is to increase the ISO. It is, however, preferable to use the lowest ISO setting available to minimize noise generation. I find that auto white balance doesn't always give good color reproduction, so I change the white balance setting to sunny in full sun conditions or cloudy on cloudy or overcast days.
Metering
Many digital cameras have more than one metering mode. The three most common are spot, center-weighted and matrix metering. If your camera has a spot meter, use it for photographing birds. Spot metering offers a more precise metering configuration than other types of metering modes as it concentrates on a limited area on the subject.
Importance of spot metering
When half pressing and holding the shutter button in Aperture Priority (Av), Shutter (Tv) Priority, Macro or Program (P) exposure modes, one can preview exposure changes on an electronic viewfinder or the LCD screen as you run the spot meter across the subject. If the spot meter is concentrated on darker tones, they will be properly exposed but originally brighter tones may become over exposed (too bright). If the spot meter is on the brighter tones, those areas will be properly exposed but originally dark tones may become under exposed (too dark). Spot metering on intermediate tones can give an good balance between the highlights and shadows. Spot metering is critical when one really wants to control the effect of light or other creative pursuit.
Other metering modes
If spot metering is not available on your digital camera, use center-weighted. It may give a better result than a pattern or matrix (evaluative) metering mode. Remember that your subject is often at the center of attraction and thus most of the time, the background is secondary. So you want to make sure you meter on the subject. Matrix metering, which meters an entire scene, may result in brighter or evenly lit images but the overall effect is often flat looking.
Focusing
The last major setting is the focus mode. The ideal setup is to use spot focusing if your digital camera has it. It allows faster and more precise focusing on a small area than a large area or multi-area focusing mode. If you don't have spot focusing, use center area focusing. A matrix focus mode that has between three to nine area focus points is okay if the foreground, subject and background are in a similar plane of focus. If not, the foreground could get all the focusing needs. Check the camera indicator when focus lock is achieved.
Where to focus
Most bird photographers tell us that the primary focusing area should be the eyes of the subject. I have confirmed this and use the eyes as my primary area to focus. One mentor I worked with would say "get the eyes in focus and the rest will follow."
Viewing bird images usually directs us first to the eyes. If the eyes are not in focus, it affects the impact of the whole image. If focusing on the eyes is not possible, alternatives are to focus on the head or feet since they are mostly in the same plane of focus as the eyes. Once focused is locked on the head or feet, recompose the shot. The exception to using these areas to focus is when taking extreme close-up shots.
The settings and setups mentioned in this article are just the beginning stages of bird photography. Continuing to travel the birding road requires one to experiment to discover what works well for a given subject and light condition. Though digital memory is cheap for taking tons of images, the pursuit of a rewarding bird photographic experience requires the investment of one's heart and time.
Return to part one | Photographing Birds in Flight
Photos Copyright 2005 Gil Tuzon All rights reserved
