Today and tomorrow, I'm going to share with you my birding experiences and some basics I learned in the city and in the countryside respectively.
Start in your dwelling place.
Maybe you’re just practicing your photography or you just love watching birds. -Whether you live in the city or in the country. What you can do is try to grab fleeting moments to take a shot. Maybe you're just walking in a hallway or washing the dishes, then you spot a bird by the window. It’s the perfect time to snap a shot. The thing is, if you're not actively looking for a bird, you probably don't have your camera with you. So, you’re going to have to try to capture the moment with your smartphone. -It’s OK, though the results are not ideal. At least, It means that you have instincts telling you something like: “There’s a nice shot waiting here and now. If only I had this camera or that...”
Use the right gear.
As I have said in one of my previous posts, most smartphone cameras can't capture fast action perfectly, not to mention having to maximize the digital zoom with birds which tends to pixelate the pictures. So, if you really want to take good pictures of birds in the city, you’d better set aside time for a photo shoot and try to find the perfect spot (maybe in the backyard or on the rooftop). Prepare for it even though you don’t see birds yet. -They just come out of the blue. It goes without saying that unless the bird is in a cage, you’d better use a telephoto lens. Remove any lens filter (especially cheap ones) if it’s not really sunny. In these pictures, I had the filter on. I figured that it causes much of the haze I have to edit regularly out of the photos. I'm thinking about painting the outside black and using it as a lens cap!
There is, of course, a large room for improvement in my photos and I will share with you what I think worked well and what didn't.
Make your subject stand out.
This is very basic and I think birds naturally stand out in the city. The problem is I got blurry edges due to inaccurate focus. A smaller aperture could've helped at the expense of a more pronounced background comression.
Look Closely and zoom in while editing.
The angle is not typical unlike most bird stock photos but it shows some action. I got Green light aberration due to the limitation of my telephoto lens. It was partially corrected by manual curve adjustments. -I just reduced the green color overall for a quick edit.
Nice framing and timing. - I think it was focused accurately but a slightly faster shutter could've reduced motion blur in the crane's head.
In this photo on the left, It's just too far away and a large portion had to be cropped. I was shooting from a bad angle as well in my opinion, having no choice but to stay on our rooftop. I'd go for rim-lighting with the sun at the back of the subject, if possible, to make it stand out. This is a major disadvantage of city-birding. You can't just walk into the neighbor's yard anytime for a better shot. -You might get shot! Haha.
This ones OK, well, editing saved it from blur, but ended up being too saturated. I was probably too excited with the bokeh effect as well and used the maximum aperture then. - I bet pros don't do that. They should know how much background compression is beneficial for the image.
In my next post, we'll have a look at country birds and the challenges I tackled. Please stay tuned!
[Samsung WB150F] (This is not part of my entry. - My brother took this and I included this photo to illustrate what surprise shots can be taken even from inside your room.)
Thanks for reading/viewing!
[Credits to the Author of Life]