Tuesday 5 July 2011

trying to up my game

I am working hard at the moment at developing one specific area of my photography - taking pictures of birds.

A lot of my earlier efforts did not come out so well, and left me frustrated. I was not using my camera correctly, I was using too slow a shutter speed, I was in the wrong shooting mode (not thinking), I was using too high an iso, etc, etc, etc. The excuses for operator error were incredible and rather pointless really. The good thing is though that I learned from the process and became better at exploiting the tools that I have availible to me.

In the process of trail and error as I got a bit better at bird photos I discovered a few useful things:
1) The light. You can have the best gear, the best lenses, camera bodies, and skill, but if you don't have the light, it won't help you all that much.
2) Being there. There is where the birds are. I used to get frustrated at the selection of birds I had to shoot around where I live until I realized that they are all beautiful, and if all I can find on a routine basis is a sparrow or two, then it would benefit me to learn how to better shoot them, wouldn't it?
3) Get close. Get as close as you can to your target without spooking it. If you are making a photo where the bird is the total focal point of the picture (like a portrait) the more of the frame the bird fills, the better. If you want a more environmental shot, a bird in context if you will, then close is still good, but not a critical (that rather depends on the focal lengths availible to you).

Here are some recent samples:





 

All for now.

Now enjoy the good weather, and bring a camera along.

Back here in blogger land again.

It has been a very long while since I have written anything on this blog. I have been preoccupied with my other project over on pbase but have decided that it is time to work on this some more. Not everything I want to write about fits well with my other project, so I am starting this one up again.