Bird Photography

[Graham 0]

Hey Jeff, I wish you luck with the birds, and if you keep trying, they will cooperate, eventually. I know what you mean about lighting, here the problem is too much sun, and too bright and harsh, pretty much everyday, and early morning or late afternoon is the only good time to try photographing birds. At the lake is a bit better mid morning if the birds are flying over water, due to reflected light under the wings.

 

I saw the most beautiful deep yellow Oriole in my back yard this morning, and I picked a few oranges from my trees, sliced them in half, and placed them on tree branches. I'm dying to have a shot at them. I hope it lives around here and comes back. It's weird, I never would have expected to get so excited seeing a bird in my yard. I guess that means the photography bug has bitten me hard...lol..

 

Graham

[kodiaksalmon 0]

Here's the crossbill. I was a birder long before I got into pictures, so yesterday I was more pumped just to see the pair of these than I was to get the pics.

 

This shot was actually taken through glass, and it turned out well for that.

 

I need to get onto Photobucket or something so I can embed these.

 

[letumgo 0]

Question for Graham or Wulff:

 

How do you get the photos in you post to show up in the large size? Mine always show up as thumbnails similar to the ones kodiaksalmon just posted.

 

Is there a setting I need to change in my profile, or is there a step I am missing when I upload photos into a post? I'd appreciate any help you can provide.

[Wulff 0]

I use a hosting service called Zenfolio to host all my pics in the form of galleries http://jben.zenfolio.com and I suspect Graham does as well. There are a number different ones out there, each is very similiar differeing mainly in the bells and whistles they offer. For 30 some odd bucks I can upload a gig worth of images, so for me its well worth it.

 

One of the chief reasons I chose Zenfolio is the manner in which they allow me to upload my full images file should I want to. Then when I post a image I can choose which size to display it in and their engine handles from there. I dont need the full resolution images for web viewing so I upload 1024 x 760 and around 500kb files.

 

Then when I display an image I link it as 800x400 and that what any viewer sees.

 

or I can display it as 1024x760

 

which is done by copying the url to the image sandwhiched betweeen " and [/img}

 

 

The key though is having a separate host. Websites like these couldnt handle the bandwidth/storage drains if the users all starting uploading 1mb or even 500kb files, let alone potentially 8mb.

[kodiaksalmon 0]

Ray-That's what I meant by "embed" a pic, and why I mentioned Photobucket. But I might check out Zenfolio on Wulff's recommendations.

 

On most forums I'll still leave my pics as thumbnails, for the sake of the dial-up guys out there. But in a dedicated photo thread or forum, I like to embed them.

 

Jeff

[Graham 0]

I size mine in Photoshop, typically 750 pixels on the longest side, most often horizontal. I upload mine onto the server for my business, that way I can track sites that post and/or copy my pics. Surprisingly the most copied photo on my site is the pink rose, seems like a lot of females use it on their myspace page, often as the background. I'm happy when others like my pics, and the bandwidth isn't a problem. I took all of the military videos people sent to my son off of his website, because the popular ones cost me several hundred a month in bandwidth fees. That was a shocking surprize.

 

Graham

[kodiaksalmon 0]

Pine siskin, this was my grandmother's favorite bird, along with bluebirds.

 

Not nearly as crisp as they should be, but they're off-hand with a 300mm. I need to set up the tripod.

 

Jeff

 

 

[Graham 0]

Looking good Kodiacsalmon. You could try setting the iso higher and use a faster shutter speed. I like to meter the sky and set my aperture at 1,000th sec shutter speed. Birds on water, out of full shade will likely shoot at about 800th. The only birds I've shot using a tripod are finch's in my back yard. I like hand holding with fast shutter speeds, can even work ok with low light.

 

Three Grebes...

 

Takeoff...

[kodiaksalmon 0]

Again, thanks Graham. I'll give it a shot.

[Graham 0]

No problem, I really like shooting birds, and glad to know others who do as well.

Pretty soon the heron's and egret's will be thick again at my local lake, once the huge schools of tillapia are on the surface, cruising the shoreline. I just can't wait, any week now, and the easy birding lasts for a couple of months. I try to keep the sun behind me, and stand on a shore line for the in flight shots. The birds almost always fly over the water, and about 10am is a great time to get light reflection under the wings, lighting them up. I have a dial where I can adjust my exposure by 1/3 stops, up and down. Using matrix metering and a blue sky I quickly dial in a -2/3 EV for an egret, and a positive 1/3 for herons. The herons need more light, and egrets and ospreys need a bit less to keep from blowing out the whites. If I can get a closeup of a stationary bird, filling the frame, like the egret above, I'll swith to center weighted metering and dial in the opposites of the numbers above. My shooting is trial and error, and I often look at the RAW data from last years birds, and try to figure out what settings worked best.

 

 

[kodiaksalmon 0]

Wow, again you've impressed me with your birds. How did you manage that heron with what appears the light behind it? You balanced that out very well. Was that in composition, or editing?

[Graham 0]

Here's the original photo, I played with the photo above in photoshop.

 

I used spot metering for this shot.

 

[Graham 0]

Couple of new bird shots

 

 

 

 

[kodiaksalmon 0]

I tried much faster shutter speeds tonight, but my aperture was still up there, and hardly any light was getting through in that short time, and the lens stopped up. I had moderate sunshine, but not mid-day brilliance. I still had to go down to 1/250 or thereabouts. I might try it again, letting it take dark, and then see about lightening it up on the computer. Am I going to have invest thousands in a super-tele lens to let light in and get these high speed shots?

 

I've not messed much is ISO either. I'll give that a shot, and see if I can get some more better lighting results.

[Graham 0]

I like to shoot at 1/1000th shutter speed at f/8, and adjust the ISO to try and get that as an exposure to start playing with. If the ISO gets above 400 I'll start opening the lens. I don't have any pro quality super fast long glass, instead I try to get as close to the birds as possible.