Birdphotographers Tips part one

A starters guide to photographing birds

What You Need:

Analogue SLR Camera's:

The more professional the camera, the better. Off course, more professional also means more expensive. My Nikon F-100 does an excellent job, because it has all the features I (and you) need. In terms of speed, the 4,5 fps built in motor drive is good enough for taking good pictures, a motor drive is a requirement because a bird is not a model, and most birds are moving when you take a shot. That is where the motor drive comes in. The more pictures you shoot, the better the chance that there is one picture which is perfect.

Next, the light metering system, again the more systems (matrix, center weighted, spot, multi spot) the better. The one which I mostly use is the center weighted light metering. This because I think that most camera's have a near perfect light metering in this setting, better than matrix metering which takes a lot of area and doesn't do so well with the long telephoto lenses we use, adjust accordingly to the colors of the bird and you get a fine picture. More about this in the next chapter.

Third: Again to do with light, the way you can over- and underexpose with your camera, My Nikon F-100 can go up to +/- thirds, so +/- 0,3 0,7 1,0 1,3 etc.

Last: at least a three AF points system, the more the better again.

That's all about the camera, some advise which camera you could use, and does the things I mentioned:

Nikon: F-5, F-100, F-80, F-65, F-75

Canon: Eos 1V, Eos 3, Eos 30,33

Minolta: Dynax 9, 7 and 5

Pentax: MZ-S, MZ-3, MZ-5

With these camera's you can photograph birds. Although I have to admit that if you are serious about bird photography you can better go for the first or second camera and save your money for the better one of the different brands I mentioned, it's just that if you own a Nikon F-65, an Eos 30 or 33 or a Dynax 5 you can use them for a long time to come and get good results. Because these models don't have features like spot metering, more than 3 fps motor drive and setting the dial for the exposure metering system can only be done in 1/2 stops, you are better of investing in a better camera that you can use in all circumstances and get even better results than from one of the these cheaper ones. The light metering system in more expensive cameras is more sophisticated, one that is build for every kind of circumstance.

Digital camera's:

These day's, digital SLR's are getting less expensive and have the ability to review your pictures, make a 400 mm lens a 600 mm lens and you can store the images on a CF card. This reduces the costs of developing your pictures / slides to if you wish none. You have a relatively cheap lens with which you can get really close to the subject and you don't have to carry a lot of films each time you go out photographing birds. Downsides of digital photography are:
1) Batteries are getting empty pretty fast. You need to charge them at least every three days. So you end up taking lots of batteries or recharge them each time which is not very practical if you go to places with few power sources and off course a different voltage / plugin etc.
2) Quality: Despite the fact that the modern digital camera's are getting better and better, it is still no match for a good picture with a Velvia 100F / Provia 100F film. You immidiately notice the difference in colors coming from pictures taken with digital camera's.
3) If you wait for a year, your camera is outdated and it will not hold much of value any longer. A lot of camera stores refuse to take in your digital camera. They never now if something is wrong with your camera and it will take to long to examine the entire camera.

Lenses:

This is not like the camera (the bigger the better) o no. Off course, I would love to own a 1200 mm 5.6, but if you are not a millionaire, or you didn't win the lottery again you probably don't think about buying one. The what I call affordable lenses are going up to the 5.6 / 400 mm's or Sigma zoom lenses to 6.3 / 500 mm's. The lens that I use as my biggest one is the new Nikon 80-400 mm 4.5/5.6 VR lens. The Nikon's VR and Canon's IS system is becoming something of a must to bird photographers around the world. Mount a lens on a monopod and under not to windy conditions using a shutter speed equal to or faster than a 1/20 sec. and if you are not suffering from the Parkinson illness you get good results, no guarantees but it worked fine with me.

As I mentioned, the bigger is not the better, a 400 mm (especially a VR or IS lens) is perfectly for use to shoot birds in flight. You can hand hold the lens and get good results because the sky is always a very bright spot. For example take a look at the Long Legged Buzzard or the Bonelli's eagle I photographed in Morocco.

The most important factors of a lens is its speed and quality. As you could see, I one's owned a Tamron 200-400 mm lens mounted on a Nikon F-100 and I found there was one problem, the lens was not fast enough because the Tamron wasn't used to the F-100 five area AF system, it did a good job when mounted on a Nikon F-60 with one area AF but not on my F-100, it took about 5 seconds to focus on most birds. That's to slow. Okay, the quality of this lens is as you can see from my pictures of the Falkland Islands outstanding. Now that I own the Nikon 80-400 mm VR I have a much more expensive lens but it is worth it. The speed is perfect, I mostly use this lens in the limited function, it could then focus from 5 mtr. to unlimited, so the AF could be much faster than focusing the entire range. The quality is perfect and the VR Stabilizer does a great job so I could use the lens on a Monopod, all the pictures of Morocco are taken that way.

You can also use medium lenses perfectly for something like Bird landscapes in places where there are thousands of waterfowl present for example, or in places where birds can be very tame, where the birds are very used to people or where they are unaware of the danger posed by a human being which is the case in the Falkland Islands.

Film:

I guess all bird photographers are using and advising to use slide film and I say they are right. In a slide the colors are much more vibrant than the best negative film. The costs to develop slides are also way cheaper, than a negative film. Okay, the slide film is more expensive than a negative film but than the quality makes up for it.

In terms of speed, most bird photographers are using or Fuji Velvia 50, Kodak E 100 VS or Fuji Provia 100 F. A slow film because the contrast and the colors are better than the 400 iso films, and the grain level is very low indeed. But I guess, that figure is nowadays becoming old fashioned. I ones tried to push a Provia 100 F film to 400 iso and I got excellent results, I will do it again. You have to tell the developer that you pushed 2 stops / or 1 stop if you are for instance pushing a 100 iso film to 200. I have also tried the Fuji Provia 400 F Film in the Falkland islands and after developing I didn't know which one it was, what I mean is that I didn't notice any difference in color or grain from the Provia 100 F.

Conclusion: use as many slide films for the first time as you like, and decide which one or two you want to use forever. That's the last advise I want to give you, just use one or two because than you really learn the characteristics of the film in different circumstances.

Some more things you need; a tripod (keeping the camera + lens very still), a camera bag (you don't want to carry everything in the pockets of your jacket), a professional flashlight is optional, I didn't have much experience with them, but I am trying as I write.

Now that you know what to use read on about how to photograph birds.

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