PHOTOGRAPHING BIRDS - III APPROACHING THE BIRD

Saturday, November 25, 2006

+ Go to beginning of the series
+ Continued at Photographing Birds IV - Composition

One of the challenges in photographing the birds is approaching them. Being small, you have to get as close as possible to be able to fill the frame. But most birds are shy and would fly away on your approach. I will list here some common techniques for approaching birds.

1. USE YOUR CAR. Cars serve as a great moving hide. Birds tend to be more comfortable with a car getting close to them than a human walking into them. A small traffic free road with shrubs and bushes close to the road would be ideal for photographing birds. Obviously if there are too many vehicles on the road, you can't do much and you won't see many birds either. If there are tall trees next to the road, you may not be able to get them from the car. So it is ideal to find a road with short vegetation.


Yellow Browed Bulbuls are very agile and hard to catch. I was lucky to find this one hardly 3 meters away when I was in the car.

To help getting a sharp image, you can considering buying a car tripod, or mounting the camera on a tripod located on passenger seat. A beanbag is another option too. You must switch off the engine before you take the shot or you can introduce plenty of vibrations in the image.


This image was taken with the car engine on. Despite a good shutter speed of 1/1000 sec, the image showed camera shake

2. STALKING. A bird is easily startled if you try walking into them. Instead try to walk in a direction perpendicular to the bird, while slowly getting close to it. You may manage to get a few feet closer to the bird this way. Also try to conceal yourself behind a tree or bush nearby if there is one, while approaching them. This is obviously much easier to do when shooting handheld than with a tripod. When shooting handheld, keep your camera positioned and ready even before you are close to the bird. You can startle the bird when trying to raise the camera to eye level.


I was hiding behind some vegetation when I shot this Little Cormorant

3. WAIT FOR THE BIRD. If you observe the bird for a while you may be able to get some idea of its movement. Wait at a strategic place, such as next to a flower or a nut which could attract the bird. You could wait behind a bush or make use of a hide of any kind so you won't scare the bird away. Use a tripod to make your wait comfortable. You can make best compositions with this approach, but you need to be patient.


I was watching Rose Ringed Parakeets for a few days. They were attracted to these nuts and flocked them often. I waited for one to appear before I got this image.

Other ways to get near the bird includes baiting the bird by setting up a bird bath or with some feed.

Be gentle and slow when you are near the bird. Any quick movement can easily startle the bird.

To be continued..

PHOTOGRAPHING BIRDS - II EQUIPMENT

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

+ Go to beginning of the series
+ Continued at Photographing Birds III - Approaching the bird

Generally speaking, a lot of photographers say a lot of times that the equipment you have doesn't matter, and it is the person behind the camera who does most of the job. It may be valid in a general context, but unfortunately not so when it comes to bird photography, or wildlife photography in general. The reasons are many:

1. Birds are fast moving subjects, it helps to have a fast autofocus in the camera/lens system.
2. It is difficult to get close to the birds. The solution is to get longer and expensive telephoto lenses with large magnification. These telephotos also require cameras that are powerful enough to drive them.
3. The best time to get bird or wildlife images is during early morning and evenings. You may not get enough light in both the times and it helps to have faster lenses which can let in more light.
4. Wildlife photography is demanding on quality and sharpness of the image. It helps to have expensive lenses which can render sharp images.
5. Features like image stabilization can be crucial when shooting handheld.

Because of all these reasons, it is important to have the right equipment for shooting birds. The lenses play a more crucial role than the cameras. A basic 75-300mm might serve as a good 'practice lens' in the beginning, but as the photographer gets more serious about bird photography, it becomes crucial to use longer lenses which can render sharper images. Some of the criteria to look for in selecting a lens.

1. A prime lens usually gives sharper and clearer image than a zoom lens.
2. Faster lenses are useful, as they can be used to shoot in low light. An f/2.8 lens is always better than f/4. But keep in mind that faster lenses tend to be heavier and expensive.
3. If you are likely to shoot handheld, image stabilization is a must
4. The longer the lens the better. Long lenses can be expensive. A 400mm or more will be important to be able to fill the frame with the bird. If you are buying a prime, you can back it up with a teleconverter, which can help increase the focal lenght. Teleconverters are not recommended with zoom lenses, since they can bring in considerable loss in quality and the loss in light it lets in.


To shoot small and agile birds like Plain Prinia, one needs a good telephoto lens that can also focus quickly

I would say that a 400mm prime lens with a 1.4x teleconverter, driven by a camera which has a crop factor of 1.5 to 1.6 should be ideal. Of course, it helps to have longer lens.

A tripod is another necessary equipment in bird photography. Best images are always made with camera mounted on the tripod. If you are not using a tripod, it is important to have lenses with image stabilization to compensate all the vibration from the hand. Since longer lenses tend to be heavy and also magnify the camera shake, it is nearly impossible to get vibration free images if you are not using either a tripod or IS lens. Also make sure that your tripod is strong enough to support a heavy telephoto lens.

Camera does not play a role as important as the lens when shooting birds, but when choosing a camera, it is essential to ensure that the camera can support and drive your telephoto lens. Continuous shooting speed is one of camera features to look for. 3 fps will suffice most of the times, but a higher number of frames per second will be useful in shooting birds in flight.

As you might have figured out by now, photographing birds can be an expensive hobby. But equipment play a very important role in bird photography.

To be continued..

ABOUT THE D40

Monday, November 20, 2006

Everyone would know about the new Nikon D40 DSLR by now, and I was thinking of not writing about it. But I had to air my opinions! There are a couple of things that I make note of.

1. DSLR prices are getting lesser and lesser. It is a good thing. A few years down the line, I hope that the Nikon D80 or Canon 400D(or the equivalent cameras they will have then) will cost no more than $300 to $350.
2. Canon has been a laggard in DSLR race. Right now, they seem to be loosing it. In the last few years, Nikon has been beating Canon with new releases. Earlier, it was Canon that always used to bring in lesser priced(but feature packed) cameras. While Nikon has been busy releasing new cameras, there is little action from canon, which is surprising.
3. The D40 is so low on features that a serious photographer will never bother to take a second look at it. Inability to auto-focus with older lenses will a big problem. But it is a great temptation for point-and-shoot buyer.

PHOTOGRAPHING BIRDS - I OBSERVE YOUR SUBJECT

Saturday, November 18, 2006

+Continued at Photographing Birds II - Get the right equipment

For those who have observed them, birds have always been a fascination. They are a delight to photograph. They make photogenic subjects because of the vivid colors some birds possess, or because of the beautiful shapes they make in flight or by the way they gel with the nature surrounding them. This is a multi-part series on photographing birds in nature, where I try to cover on the necessary equipment, preparations and how to go about shooting them.

THE BEGINNING: OBSERVE YOUR SUBJECT

It is necessary for a photographer to know and get familiar with his subject, regardless of the kind of subject he is shooting. This applies all the more to birds, due to their agility and unpredictability. They tend to be shy and least co-operative subjects, making shooting them difficult. Knowing the bird's behavior is necessary to imagine photographing possibilities, to make compositions and also to predict the right moment to shoot. Before photographing a bird, it helps to observe the bird and try to understand its behavior as much as possible. The more you observe the bird, more likely that you can understand and predict their behavior, and more likely that you can make a good shot.

When it comes to observing the subject, I am reminded of TNA Perumal, a professional wildlife photographer from my city. He talks about spending nearly three weeks observing an owl and trying to work on some shots. Finally, he came back with a perfectly sharp and properly focused image of the owl in flight with a mouse in its beak, an amazing photograph by any standard. Ofcourse, most of us may not be able to spend several weeks watching a bird, but the longer you spend with the subject, more likely you make better images.



Exif: Canon EOS 350D, 100-400L at 400mm, f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 200

Coppersmith Barbets are not very shy and they don't run away on your approach. But they are very agile and hardly sit still at any place. Since they keep moving, it is difficult to focus and get them, and it is even difficult to get them in good position and light. I spent a lot of tailing this bird, before managing to catch it in the frame.

To be continued..

PREVIOUS IMAGE IN B&W

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Based on an advice, I decided to try converting this image to black and white. I haven't done much of b&w conversion, and it is very much possible that I have done a bad job with this. Tell me which one you liked, the color version or the b&w? I have also given the color image here again for convenience.





Here is the post processing steps

1. Convert to b&w using channel mixer. I reduced the green colors(-10), so that the rock looks dark. Next I set the blue level(32) such that I will not be burning out the sea, which is already over-exposed. Next, I adjusted the red to make the sum of the colors 100.
2. Next step was to defog the image for local contrast enhancement.
3. Adjust the levels to get a pleasing contrast. I left the black and white sliders untouched and slightly reduced the gamma.
4. Resize and sharpen the image.

IMAGE: AT THE BEACH

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

This image was taken at Kappad beach, Kerala, India. Obviously shot at the time of sunset, I wandered around the beach for around two hours and finally settled myself in front of this rock at the hour of sunset. The gray sky was a disappointment, but the appeal of green moss on the rock kept me there. I tried a couple of shots, some vertical and some horizontal but was not very happy. Thats when this kid walked into the place where he is seen standing and I quickly made this image.



Exif: Canon EOS 350D, 17-40L at 17mm, 1/6sec, f/4, ISO 100.

Click on the image for a larger version.

I wish I could make this image with a smaller aperture to gain more depth of field. But 1/6 sec was already slow, as the kid could have moved from his place. He did not stand there long either, which did not give me another chance.

LAST WEEK'S HAPPENINGS(WHILE I WAS AWAY)

Sunday, November 12, 2006

I was away for a week, travelling in the beautiful countryside, backwaters, beaches and wildlife places of Kerala, India. I have just one or two photographs to post from the trip, as I did not spend much time with the camera. After returning, I was surfing through last few week's digital photography news and happenings, and here are some of them interesting.

1. A lot of people are expecting a new digital SLR from Nikon, called D40. As you can guess from the name, it will be a low end Camera. Ken Rockwell thinks that the 'rumour' is obviously true and puts the facts on the camera - $500, 3 point AF and no AF motor in the body(AF possible with AF-S lens only). Dpreview has a list of rumour postings on the net!

2. Canon issues firmware upgrade for 30D. This is slightly older news. The upgrade provides the following:

a. When making camera-direct prints, a semi-gloss paper can be newly selected in the camera settings.
b. Corrected the phenomenon wherein the displayed number of continuous shots that can be taken increases when images that have been taken are deleted.

3. Sharp is going higher in the megapixel numbers with a new 12mp compact digital camera. Rightly, guys at dpreview wonder if it makes any sense to have such high resolution. They say:

"Sharp has gone and announced a twelve megapixel 1/1.7" sensor. Lets face it the latest batch of ten megapixel compacts are nothing to get excited about, seven was enough in any compact, it's pretty sad to see another two million photosites crammed into the same space."

IMAGES FROM MARC ADAMUS

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Time and again I am amused by the amazing quality of images that I hit upon while browsing the web. Startlingly beautiful images made by Marc Adamus kept me busy browsing his gallery for sometime last week. Going through his galleries seemed like an out-of-the-world experience. His mountains and other landscape images in the evening or morning lights, besides being amazing, make me feel jealous of him for having been to such beautiful places!

10MP CAMERA PHONES AND LOW-END P&S

Friday, November 03, 2006

I always thought camera phones are fancy than any thing else. Even recently, most of them had not crossed the 2 megapixel mark, and they were more like useful only when you did not carry the camera.

But when I was reading about Samsung's 10mp camera phone, it got me wondering. The phone in question has a camera with 3x zoom and autofocus, which matches(or rivals) most full-auto point and shoot digital cameras. Ofcourse, with improving technology, this will become common in most phones in the days to come. If you had one such camera in the phone, I don't think you would want to carry another P&S camera with you. I already see people trying to use their cameras to shoot pictures in parties, picnics and even touristy and scenic places.

That makes me wonder, if lower and point and shoot cameras will become extinct in a few years to come. Camera makers will have to find their market in higher end cameras(SLRs as well as P&S) and in outsourcing to handset manufacturers. Even more reason for consolidation in the industry and a possibility of some more digital camera makers to shut shop!

MY VARANASI IMAGES AND WRITE-UP ON LANDSCAPE MAGAZINE

Thursday, November 02, 2006

My Varanasi travel notes and accompanying photographs have appeared on the cover of 'Landscape' magazine, New Delhi. It was due for a while, but I did not know it was going to be on the cover! Even more surprise was a double page center blow-up of this photograph.



You can also read the Varanasi travel report on my travel blog.

Below are the pictures that were published in the mag.

1. Jain Munis walking on the ghats
2. Drying saris on the ghats
3. View of the ghats
4. Women enjoying the boat ride
5. A view of the ghats
6. Women in Prayer
7. Preparing for the aarti
8. A woman worships peepul tree
9. A Sadhu on the ghats
10. Ganga aarti
11. A woman in prayer
12. A Sadhu makes offering to sun

You can see more images on the Varanasi album in my image gallery.

Using the Tripod and leaving IS on..

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

I had heard earlier that IS and tripod do not go together but having not used much of tripod till now, never knew what really happens. I had always assumed that some extra stability will help and I could well shoot with the IS on even when using the tripod.

A couple of weeks back when I bought my new tripod support, I was testing its stability by mounting my 100-400L. I mounted the lens on the tripod and started focusing using the shutter button(i.e, without the cable release). As I focussed, slowly and gently the frame in the view finder shifted a little. After focusing was complete, the frame stabilized a bit, but still occasionally kept shifting left or right. First I assumed that my hand may be the culprit and tried to be gentler, but that did not seem to help. I wondered if I had a sub-standard tripod, and now started trying out with the cable release. Even with the cable release, there was some movement of the frame when I looked through the viewfinder. It took me a couple of minutes of thinking before I could zero in on the possible culprit. It was the humming sound of the IS in the lens which alerted me of the possibility of IS causing some trouble. Finally when I turned off the image stabilization everything became normal, and I felt some relief!