An NSBS Over-view Guide to Bird Photography

by Richard Stern, Kentville, NS, November 2023

We live in a Golden Age of bird photography, with a dizzying array of cameras and equipment, the ability to shoot many pictures and delete the ones we don't like, without incurring any cost, a huge quantity of learning resources on line, and the ability to easily share images through social media sites and on the web. There are now more and more birders who use only a camera and leave the binoculars at home. So here is a quick and basic guide for beginners and others who might want to improve.

There are numerous books and websites devoted to the gear, the techniques and the art of photographing birds. One of the best ways to learn is to do an internet search on, e.g. bird photography, or how to photograph birds. There are many YouTube videos which are particularly helpful, including outstanding “how to” series that are well explained by professional photographers such as Simon D’Entremont and Steven Perry. There are also many that can “walk you through” how to set up your complicated camera for bird photography. And there are a number of other extremely talented bird photographers who belong to the NSBS, and who, if you ask nicely, or run into them on a field trip, would be happy to help and answer questions.  

It is helpful to learn some of the basics of photography - e.g. the meaning of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, digital noise, different exposure and focus options, and how to use your camera, etc. Particularly important is the understanding of light, and how the camera interprets it. Bird photography, particularly birds in flight, is one of the hardest types of photography to do well, but very rewarding if you can. Using “automatic” modes does not often produce good bird photos unless the bird is stationary, relatively frame filling, and in good light.

In this day and age Photography basically involves using a digital camera - the days of film are mostly over, and that nearly always also means needing some computer skills in order to process the image files.  There are many reasons to photograph birds - for your own pleasure, to show others, to document rarities, to print, frame and sell, etc. The problem is that many birds seen in NS don't come close and don't stay still, so in most cases the typical pocket point-and-shoot camera or the camera in your phone won't be up to the task of capturing good images. There are exceptions, particularly when birds are part of a more general scenic image, or to photograph large and slow-moving birds that happen to be close by, but for most bird photography you want to get the subject large enough to be the major part of the overall image. That means using a telephoto lens.

There are several classes of camera that can take telephoto lenses. The first is the bridge camera, or "superzoom", which is a type of point-and-shoot, but usually too large to fit in a pocket, and which comes as an all-in-one camera with a non-removable lens that can be zoomed from wide angle to telephoto. Current examples include the Sony Cyber-shot RX10-IV, Panasonic Lumix DSC-ZS-100 (which can actually fit in a pocket), Nikon Cooplix P1000 and others. The often-quoted zoom factor (e.g. 20x, 24x etc.) does not matter. Far more important for bird photography is the maximum zoom length expressed as the "35 mm or full frame equivalent", and in some ways - the longer the better. You will need a lens focal length of at least 400 mm to bring most birds in close. The current ones available all have at least that. The problem is that large magnifications don't just magnify the bird, but they also magnify camera shake, the bird's movements, heat/ smoke haze, and other issues. To minimize these issues, all these cameras now have some form of image stabilization built in - which helps with shaky hands, but doesn't help with a moving target. For that, you need a high shutter speed - at least the reciprocal of the length of the lens - e.g. for a 500 mm lens you will need to use a shutter speed of 1/500 second, and in turn to achieve that, you need good light. Because of the relative costs, and the physics of this type of camera body, the sensor inside the camera generally won't provide as high quality an image as an interchangeable lens camera.  Most of these cameras will cost in the $600 to $1500 range.

The second type of camera has separate, and changeable lenses. Digital single-lens reflex (dSLR) and "Mirrorless" cameras are in this category. In this type, the camera body and the lenses come separately, so it is possible to buy one camera body, and e.g. a lens for portraits, another lens for landscapes and another lens for birds. There are also excellent zoom lenses that can handle all these situations, but most tend to give less sharp coverage at the long end. The 2 major manufacturers of these types of camera are Canon and Nikon, with manufacturers Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji and Sony also popular. All manufacturers have a wide variety of camera bodies, ranging from several hundred to many thousands of dollars for the body alone, and even more for high quality lenses. Unfortunately, Canon lenses won't fit on Nikon bodies and vice versa, so you have to decide which "system" to buy into, although adapters exist which allow this to some extent. Third party makes, such as the Sigma and Tamron 100-400 and 150-600mm zoom lenses are also excellent. For bird photography, fast auto-focus, a rapid burst mode and a large buffer are important in a camera body, and a lens should be “fast” enough to allow for fast shutter speeds even in low light.

In recent years all the manufactures have largely switched from dSLR to mirrorless camera bodies, often with new lenses designed to match. The advantages of mirrorless are “wysiwyg” (what you see is what you get) viewfinders, faster and more silent electronic shutters, the ability to shoot video through the viewfinder, so making it less necessary to use a tripod and the LCD screen, and (usually) smaller and lighter camera bodies. The higher end ones now also have built in AI object detection, including birds, so that if it is turned on in the camera, it will automatically lock on to any bird in the viewfinder.The big heavy telephoto lenses, however, are generally not smaller, lighter or cheaper!

The advantages of an interchangeable lens camera (ILC) compared to a Bridge camera are that in less than perfect light, or for fast moving subjects, or if you need to crop the subject heavily in post-processing, or if you want the final image to fill a large screen or print, or for most in-flight shots, you will get a higher quality, sharper and more pleasing image. They also have real eye-level viewfinders, which many Bridge cameras don’t. But you get what you pay for, in terms of both photo quality and portability.

For birders who own a spotting scope, it is possible to shoot through the eyepiece using an ordinary point-and-shoot camera, or even a smart-phone, called Digiscoping. It's very hard to get a high-quality image, but there are a few people who post very good ones on line and further information can be found by searching the web. There are adapters available online to join the phone camera to the scope if needed.

If you're going to buy, or upgrade, a camera or lens, one of the best resources for looking at the reviews, specifications of different models and makes is www.dpreview.com. Other excellent sites are www.bhphotovideo.com, and of course Amazon, where you can browse the prices, and the user reviews, for individual products. However, if possible you should try and actually handle any camera and lens you want before emptying your pocket, so that you can feel comfortable with the size, weight and feel of the camera. Also, camera bodies are mini-computers, and become obsolete and replaced by the latest model with more bells and whistles after a few months, but high-quality lenses retain their quality and value for years. There are now only a few stores in NS where it is possible to physically handle and buy the equipment.

There are many books and web sites, workshops and more devoted to the art of bird photography and how to get, or create, a high-quality image. But there are a few basic principles that can summarize the main points:

• Learn and know your subjects. Find out where the birds are, and how to use good fieldcraft to get as close as possible to the bird without disturbing it, particularly if there is a nest involved or the bird is a "sensitive" species. Move slowly, use subdued clothing colours, keep quiet, know the habits of the bird you are trying to "capture".  Try to get as close as possible to the bird. A close shot is generally higher quality than a distant shot that has been cropped and enlarged afterwards.
• Learn your gear. It's no use having a super rare and colourful bird posing in front of you if you don't know how to compensate your exposure for backlighting, change the shutter speed if the bird starts moving, zoom the lens if you need to, change the battery, etc.
• Use the light. The word photography means light-drawing - try and avoid harsh shadows (try and photograph on overcast days, or early in the morning), and try and illuminate the bird by having the sun behind you. Know how to expose correctly for, e.g. the white of a gull or the black of a crow, and not lose detail in the feathers.
• Know how to focus properly. The point of focus should ideally be on the bird's eye, and if the bird is moving, know how to change the focus point on your camera quickly.
• Try and have eye contact or a good head angle - bird images look much better if the bird is looking slightly towards you rather than slightly away. They also look better if you are at the same level as the bird - not too far above or below it. This may involve, e.g. lying flat in the mud to get level with shorebirds, if you are physically able.
• Watch the background. Try and get a "clean" image, without branches or other objects passing in front of the bird, or a branch sticking out of the bird's head.
• Try and include some habitat, to give context to the bird. A bird on a plain branch against a plain blue sky can look boring.
• Try and use a shutter speed that keeps the birds sharp. A good rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed that is higher than the reciprocal of the lens’s focal length - e.g. > 1/500 sec. For a 500mm Lens (or twice that in a camera with a smaller sensor).
• Don’t be afraid to use multiple frames per second (the “spray and pray” method!).. It’s free, and one of the frames might be the she sharpest or have the best head or wing angle, so that might be the difference between a mediocre and a good image. Nearly all modern cameras can shoot at 10 or more frames/ sec.

Bird photography ethics are also of paramount importance. The safety of bird must always come first -e.g. don’t get so close to a nest that a bird incubating eggs gets frightened off; limit trying to lure a bird closer by using recordings etc. to a minimum, and not in nesting season, etc..

Photography ethics are also important. E.g. if you are sending a photo to eBird to document a rare bird, it is best not to remove or move annoying elements, change colours etc., using software, but if the object is to have a pleasing print to hang on the wall for yourself to enjoy, that is perfectly acceptable. Most photo contests will allow minimal changes such as slight sharpening or noise reduction, but no other post processing. And anyway, unless you are very good at that, it is better to get things right in the camera anyway.

Of course all of this comes with a LOT of practice and perseverance. Too often the bird you want to photograph is moving about in the branches of a tree, and the only time it comes into view is when it's silhouetted against the sun, your camera gives a low battery warning beep, to get level with the bird you need to jump over a cliff, and if it's a rare bird, no one will believe you saw it unless you photograph it, so you're panicky and shaking with excitement and can't hold the camera still! Well, keep trying anyway. For documenting rarities, even a poor-quality image is better than nothing. It is also important to have a backup system, so that if the media card becomes corrupted or the hard drive on the computer fails, all is not lost.

But one topic is very important for digital photographers. Once the image has been taken, and it's on the media card in the camera, it often needs some type of post-processing in a computer program to make the most of it and the show it to others.  However it is often acceptable to take images straight out of the camera, and with skill and luck they can also be excellent.

Modern laptop or desktop computer, and higher end tablets, will handle the software that is necessary, but a large LCD or screen is helpful to careful examine the image for sharpness and artefacts. And the more RAM there is in the computer, the faster and more efficient the chosen program will run. It’s best to plan on upgrading your computer hardware every few years to handle the frequent software upgrades that the manufactures put out. Who said good bird photography is cheap?! 

The highest quality pictures are usually taken in Raw mode (the digital equivalent of a negative or slide in the "old" system) and then sharpened, colour-adjusted, cropped, re-sized for the web, or for printing, etc. in software such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop CS, as well as software that is specific for the manufacturer of the camera. There is also now software that is very efficient at removing “digital noise” from images, so if the light is poor and you need very high shutter speeds to take a good photo (which often results in having to use high ISO levels)), the resulting digital noise can easily be removed in one of these programs. It is better to do that than to try and get a good photo with shutter speeds that are too slow for the bird or the photographer’s movements, as out -of-focus pictures from that cannot be recovered .it is universally regarded as an essential part of the process of creating high-quality digital images. But it does add another layer to the overall learning process.

There are a lot of other topics I could cover, but won't do so here - including video, how to archive and backup pictures, and many others.

But after all this, a good oft-quoted message to remember is “the most important tool in photography is the 2 inches behind the camera”. So go out and take pictures, and Happy photographing!!!

 ------- RBS