5 Tips for Great Birding PhotosPhotographer Don Mammoser offers advice for capturing eye-catching avian images. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Don Mammoser |
Don Mammoser isn't a professional birder, but the Colorado photographer estimates that he has more bird images than any other subject except for travel. "I love bird photography," he says. "I definitely keep my eyes open for them when I'm traveling, but the great thing about them is that they're always around every day, no matter where you are - you can find them in your backyard, a neighborhood park, or in an aviary. They're such a visual and colorful subject." |
The new Tamron SP 150-600mm VC USD zoom lens allows Don to take pictures of the nearly 500 bird species just in the Centennial State alone. "When you look at birds through the camera, they actually appear smaller in the frame," he says. "You need a lens with a lot of zoom power. The Tamron 150-600 gives me that extra reach and opens up more bird photo opportunities for me. The Vibration Compensation (VC) feature helps eliminate camera shake, which comes in handy when I'm on the ground to get on the bird's level - there's no using a tripod when you're down in the dirt like that!" |
Bird photography can be challenging, but Don offers his top tips below for mastering this ornithological endeavor. |
Control and manage your backgrounds. |
If a subject is far away from its background, you can use that to your advantage. In my image of a meadowlark perched above a fence post, the background is a farmer's field. The field is about 50 yards away, which is enough of a distance so that it wouldn't come into focus even if I wanted it to. I did stop the lens down a bit for that image to ensure I had enough of the bird in focus. If you had the opposite of that (say, a bird sitting in a tree with lots of branches behind it), it might be difficult to get a clean background. |
Get down to the bird's eye level (or come up to it). |
For one bird I photographed in a city park, I was down on my stomach, using my elbows as a makeshift tripod. Of course, it's not always easy to get down on your hands and knees in the dirt. If that's the case, wait for a bird to come up to your eye level, such as on a perch or bird feeder. |
Anticipate the action. |
Take the goose I photographed, shown here. It's a very common bird found all over the country, even in city parks surrounded by skyscrapers. I took a few static, portrait-style photos when I saw it in my frame, then just waited to see what it would do next. And it did what geese usually do when they're on the water: It took a bath and dipped its head under the water. When it came up, it had all of this water dripping off of its bill - I had my camera in Continuous mode with a fast motor drive, so I just took a series of quick pictures. |
Look for easier-to-photograph big birds. |
Have patience when you're trying to capture birds in flight. I probably delete 70 percent of the images I take. You'll be taking picture after picture - the bird will come too close, the wings will get cut off in the frame, things like that. If you get one or two keepers in a series of in-flight images where the bird's wings are spread and there's room in the frame, consider that a success! |
Check out local venues that house habituated birds. |
The birds are free to fly around there, though typically they're just sitting on a branch and hanging out - the perfect photo opportunity. This is your time to take portraits. I always search for the most colorful bird I can find, since this is my chance to capture a bird like that in all its glory by taking your time and focusing on its face. |
The green-and-blue macaw shown here was "kissing" and touching beaks with a red macaw (you can see a small bit of that bird in the right-hand corner). I wanted to get a shot of them interacting, but it was a little too dark in the area I was in and I couldn't get a fast-enough shutter speed. So I waited until playtime was over and the green-and-blue macaw was resting to get my portrait. The color in this image speaks volumes - the 150-600mm lens really shows off the macaw's details and what a beautiful bird it is. |
Following simple compositional guidelines will help you create a visually compelling image. |
You'll also notice the bird in this image is facing left, with ample space in the direction it's staring and the edge of the frame. This is an effective way to imply direction of motion. It looks like the bird is wondering, "Where can I jump to or fly to next?" |
Finally, even though it's nice to fill the frame with the bird you're photographing, sometimes it's even better to show where it lives for a more environmental image. This bird, for example, lives in a pine forest, so it was cool to get it perched on the branch of a pine tree on top of the pinecone. The meadowlark I talked about earlier lives in a farmer's field - there's often a barbed-wire fence surrounding farmer's fields, so even though it's a manmade structure, it's part of the bird's everyday life and I wanted to get it in the image if possible. |
To see more of Don Mammoser's work, go to www.donmammoserphoto.com. |