If you have $ 160,000 or so and want to learn photography, then you can skip this post. Just head to Rhode Island, enroll in the School of Design (or another prestigious art school), and, in about four years, your photography will rock. It had better, right? đ Fortunately, with the Internet, you have accessible and inexpensive (or free) ways to educate Continue Reading
The post Create Your Own DIY-Style Photography Course appeared first on Photodoto.
In the past few years, thanks to the diffusion of useful accessories and photographic filters with good quality and low prices, the technique of long exposure has become increasingly popular among photography enthusiasts. Even if this technique can be used both in studio and in a urban environment, the perfect playground of long exposures is landscape photography.
Unfortunately often it happens that the result we get is far from our expectations, and we end up classifying the long exposure as a demoniacal technique. However, following this step-by-step guide to long exposure photography, you’ll see how easy it is to get a good result on the first attempt (or almost).
A day with a cloudless sky is a good day to drink a beer with friends, not to make long exposures. Likewise it cannot rain forever, so do not resign yourself to an afternoon with your PlayStation. You should study satellite images rather than the meteorological sites, trying to figure out if there is an incoming storm, or if the downpour is about to end.
Scout the location ahead of time, as you need a lot of time to find the perfect composition, or at least more than the time needed for a “short exposure”. In fact in a long exposure the world is completely different from how you see it with your own eyes. You have to try to see it with your mind, looking for a harmonious composition that includes moving subjects, trying to predict the direction of the clouds or the force of the sea. Try not to put the sun into the composition because its movement will ruin the shot and it will create area of overexposure that is not recoverable. If you cannot avoid the sun, wait for it to hide behind a cloud.
Mount your camera on a tripod and install all the accessories such as the remote shutter release and the filter holder (if you are using drop-in filters). However, wait to actually install the filters. Very important!
Refine your composition, focus on the subject and lock the focus. If you are using manual focus, just do it. If you are using the autofocus mode, you should focus by half-pressing the shutter button, and once the focus has been made, while still holding down the shutter button halfway, push the lever from Auto Focus to Manual. In this way, your camera will maintain the focus (or alternately you could use back-button focus).
Now set your camera to Manual (M) mode or Aperture Priority (A/Av) mode. Then set the aperture to an appropriate value for the scene (for landscapes I suggest between f/8 and f/11) and take a “Test Shot”. The test is complete when you get a correct exposure. To determine if the exposure is correct, check the histogram (do not trust your display, it is too bright). It is true, there is no universally correct histogram, but there are histograms that are universally incorrect, namely moved completely to the right or left side (the image is respectively overexposed or underexposed). Once the test shot is successful, write down the shutter speed you used for that shot.
Now add your Neutral Density (ND) filter. If the filter is very strong, for example 10 stops, you will not be able to see through the viewfinder or the Live View. Do not worry, because if you have followed the guide up to this point you will notice that we have already made the composition and the focus too. You are blind, but your camera will see everything perfectly.
Set the shooting mode to Bulb (B) in order to take over the thirty second limit of the camera. Do not change any of the other settings (ISO and aperture) used in the test shot.
It is finally time to take our long exposure shot. But how long will you to leave the shutter open? It is less difficult than you might expect. First of all, recollect the shutter speed that you noted down from the “Test Shot” you did in Step Five above. Now you must compensate by the number of stops introduced by the filter. For example, if your test shot was 1/15th of a second, adding 10 stops will get a shutter speed of approximately 60 seconds. There you have your shutter speed. No need to be stuck in the mathematics: on the internet you can easily find conversion tables and applications for your smartphone that will do the conversion for you.
Once you’ve taken the shot with the calculated shutter speed, check the histogram. If the new histogram is approximately equal to the one of the test shot, mission accomplished. If it is shifted too far to the right or to the left, repeat the shot again correcting the shutter speed.
Easy, isnât it? Now fill your backpack with your camera and filters and go to practice in the field. For any doubt or if you need any help, donât hesitate to ask questions in the comments below. Please share your long exposure images as well.
The post Step-by-step Guide to Long Exposure Photography by Francesco Gola appeared first on Digital Photography School.
The only three lenses you need for travel photography anywhere in the world are a fisheye lens, a 50mm, and a 135mm (or similar telephoto).
You can agree and finish this article right here, or you can read on to see exactly why I would choose only these three lenses to take with me anywhere in the world.
Night shot from atop a bridge in Moscow, using the Canon fisheye 15mm f/2.8
Before I say anything else, the fisheye I have in mind has an aperture of f/2.8, the 50mm has an aperture of f/1.4, and the 135 has an aperture of f/2.0. Popular, cheaper variations on these lenses would be the 24mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.8, and the 100mm f/2.8 Macro. I’d also like to address what I imagine a popular response to this article might be: “What about the 24-105mm?” This lens is weak for a couple of reasons. The maximum aperture on this lens is f/4, which ends up being very limiting if you are trying to travel light (and going without an off camera flash). Â Also, prime lenses are always superior in quality to zoom lenses. There are less moving parts and the image quality is cleaner. If you think having just one lens to cover a greater range is easier, just remember what you gain in convenience (by having one lens) you lose in quality, weight, and ability to “see” in the dark.
Each of these lenses are used for very specific reasons. Just as we wear different shoes for different purposes throughout our week, such as; sneakers for exercise, dress shoes for work, and slippers around the house – we use different lenses to convey different feelings, emotions, and to use as different tools to capture our experiences. Some lenses really are better than others for certain things. For example, portraits are best taken with lenses between 85mm and 135mm. The distortion to the face/ears is minimized and the truest proportions are found in this range.
On the other hand, you wouldn’t normally reach for a lens like this when shooting a landscape scene (there are always exceptions to every rule, and it’s fun to see what happens when you break the general guidelines). Great lenses for landscapes tend to be a bit wider, somewhere between 15mm and 50mm. I recently took only these three lenses with me on the Trans Siberian Railway from Russia through Mongolia into China. Here are MY reasons for bringing the 15mm Fisheye, 50mm f/1.4, and the Canon 135mm f/2.0 with me on this trip of a lifetime.
From Moscow, Russia
The Canon 15mm lens is my antidote to boring building pictures. When traveling abroad (or around your own town/city/village), interesting buildings are inevitably photographed. Oh, that old bridge with locks attached to it? Better take a picture. Oh, look at that old cathedral in the Kremlin, better take a picture. If it’s there, it must be important. Well, you can add your photo to 1.5 million other photographs right there on Flickr or Google images that look exactly like the one you just took.
What will you do to differentiate yourself? How can you take a picture that will make someone pause for more than half a second? Â Ad companies are excited when someone spends 4-8 seconds looking at a photo. Can you get someone to look at one photo for that long? What would it take? For me, I decided I would never take boring, straight photos of buildings ever again. I’d either edit them in unusual ways (like creating an HDR image, or process it in very contrasted black and white), at unusual times of day, or I would attempt to photograph it differently than every other tourist before me.
The subways in Moscow, Russia
Selfies are easy with the fisheye lens. That bag on my shoulder could hold my camera, three lenses, my laptop, batteries, some magazines and a book.
Shooting with a fisheye lens can be really fun, actually. Hold your camera up to your eye with a fisheye lens on, move the camera upwards and watch the horizon bend down sharply at the sides, creating a “globe” feel to your image. Tilt the camera down and watch the earth curve up like a big “U”. Buildings become warped and distorted in unusual ways, like a piece of Gaudi’s architecture. Stand in the middle of the street and point the camera straight upwards and watch the buildings on the side loom over you, like in a Dr. Seuss book.
My bunkmates on the Trans Siberian Railway
Fisheye lenses can capture an entire room, cabin of a train, or a bathroom easily. They make selfies on your DSLR incredibly easy. You can take incredible photos of the stars at night. And best of all, they are great for doing the Camera Toss. (I suppose I should recommend NOT trying this ever, anywhere). Fisheye lenses add an element of fun and whimsy to travel photos, which I find otherwise a bit boring and predictable. It’s also an incredibly light and compact lens to travel with, which is why I always bring it along on my trips now.
My camera toss, where I throw my camera with a fisheye lens high up into the air to capture a scene like this
The 50mm lens is a standard, go-to, all-around lens. And while the Fisheye lens brings a lot of whimsy and fun to my travel pictures, some scenes just don’t call for that. I’ve heard it said that the 50mm is the closest representation to what we see naturally with our eyes. This lens is my best choice of the three options for Canon 50mm lenses. For only about $ 300, this lens has fantastic optics and a powerful aperture. It’s made of real glass lenses unlike the cheaper, lower quality 50mm f/1.8. And it focuses fast, unlike the much more expensive 50mm f/1.2, which happens to be twice as heavy.
A garden scene in Moscow, Russia taken with the 50mm f/1.4. Such lovely bokeh!
This is a great, inconspicuous lens on a camera body because it doesn’t stick out too much like a 70-200mm would, and the quality is just superb, as I’ve already said. It is extremely lightweight, and you could honestly walk around the entire day with just this lens. What I associate most with the 50mm f/1.4 lens is street photography. I love to take that lens and get lost down side streets and alleyways. I like to take photos of strangers on the street with this lens. The focal length is just right, so it feels as though the viewer is standing there by him or herself. It captures just enough of a scene to convey what is there.
A retired math teacher from Texas on the Trans Siberian Railway
The 50mm f/1.4 is also a great lens for portraits (though I prefer the 135mm f/2.0). It produces lovely bokeh. It forces you to get up close to your subject, making the portrait more intimate. You can’t hide behind a telephoto like the 135mm or a 70-200mm. You are an arm’s distance away, and being that close sometimes shows up on the subject’s face in interesting ways.
My Mongolian host preparing milk tea in the yurt.
The last thing that I think the 50mm f/1.4 does best, is capture images in low light situations. Trying to capture dinner in a restaurant at night using candlelight only? Totally possible. That light reflecting across the river at night? 50mm does it best! Sleeping in yurts for four nights in a row? Getting that delicious yurt light from the top of the tent is easy with the 50mm.
Taken in the back alleys of Beijing, China with my 50mm lens, my favorite street photography lens.
Fun fact: of my top 200 images from the trip, 112 of them were taken with the 50mm.
The granddaddy of all these lenses, the 135mm f/2.0 has a special POW feel to it. Because it is a telephoto, it pulls the background in for a nice compact feel to the images. It is a great portrait lens as it completely obliterates the background in a sea of dreamy bokeh. And one special fact about the Canon 135mm f/2.0: it has the ability to focus at a distance of 1 meter (3 feet), which makes it almost like a macro lens.
My host on the left, after we road horseback from one village to the next, in Mongolia. Taken with the 135mm f/2.0
This lens is fun for me because it has similar properties to the 70-200mm, but it weighs nearly half as much, which will save your back and shoulders after a long day of walking around. This is a fun lens to spy on people from afar, if you are afraid of the straight-on street style encounters you get with the 50mm. This is actually a really interesting lens to do landscapes with if you have enough room. Look at this side-by-side comparison of basically the two same scenes, and look what the 135mm does to the mountains and landscape in the background. It really pulls them towards you, the viewer and truly implies the scope of the scene.
The same view from the fisheye and the 135mm. Notice the mountain with the bright spot in the background of the fisheye; it’s almost non-existent. With the telephoto the mountain becomes a major player in the photo.
Taken on my way to the oldest and deepest freshwater lake in the world. Lake Baikal, in Siberia, Russia.
In the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia. This is one instance where I enjoy breaking the rules and using a telephoto lens to capture an idea of a building, rather than the whole thing with a 50mm or Fisheye lens.
I hope these images and words have inspired you. It’s really fun to limit yourself to prime lenses and feel how they work (and don’t work) in various situations. Being that close to just a few lenses over a month of travel really allows you to get to know the equipment well. So now let’s see some travel photos you’ve taken with prime lenses!
The post The Only Three Lenses You Need for Travel Photography by Phillip VanNostrand appeared first on Digital Photography School.
In all the talk about new gear, and which brands are best it’s easy to overlook the end result of our shared passion – the pursuit of stunning images. Among our large community there are some incredibly talented photographers who share their work in our forums, galleries and photo challenges. From time to time we like to showcase some of the best work on our homepage. This week we challenged users of the landscape photography forum to submit their strongest shots, and the results were impressive. Click through to see more.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
There are many ways to go about finding photography locations, but if you’re struggling to find new locations I’d suggest giving ShotHotspot a try.
Search locations, keywords, and type of photography
The standout feature of ShotHotspot has got to be the search functionality that they have built into the site. Much like Stuck on Earth the photographs they are using come from Flickr and Panoramio, but unlike Stuck on Earth and other outlets ShotHotspot allows you to search based on keywords, style of photography, location distance, and gives you full control over how strong the matching system should be.
Search within a drawn box
As if that wasn’t enough, it gets even better!. Say you’re not exactly sure what the location that you want to search is called, but you have a general idea of where it is located on a map, you can simply draw a box and search only within that box for photographs taken there and still have access to the various filtering options.
By far they have one of the best search engines I’ve come across for finding locations to photograph, and with time it will only get better.
One of the problems with pulling data from sites like Flickr and Panoramio is that you rely on the accuracy of the photographer’s location data and key wording. ShotHotspot occasionally will ask for your help in order to help make the location data better. It does this through a simple “Help us Out” box that asks for various information about the location that you are currently browsing.
ShotHotspot asks for help from a human brain when it needs it
On top of crowdsourcing for location corrections, ShotHotspot also allows its users to add hotspot locations to their database and edit information about current hotspots that they currently store. This allows for a massive worldwide approach to finding spots to photograph, and determining which ones are better than others. As a user you can add things like type of suitable photography, best time to visit, equipment required, cost of entry or even a general description of the location.
Add information to locations to help make the database stronger
While the search functionality is probably the best feature of the site there are a couple of other cool additions that only add to the experience. The first of which is that HotShotspot is directly hooked into The Photographer’s Ephemeris. This allows you to get information on sunrise, sunset, anything else you’d like to know about the location with the click of a button.
Clicking on the sun/moon calculator will open The Photographer’s Ephemeris
Get all the details you need to plan for your shoot
Finally ShotHotspot has also tapped into the gigantic database of Wikipedia for information about the locations it has in the database. Not every location has a wiki page so you’ll find some that are empty, but more popular locations will have a vast amount of information for you to browse through.
Information from Wikipedia with a link to the Wiki page of the location makes it easy to find out more about where you’re going.
In just a few minutes I found two locations I didn’t even know existed less than 20 miles from my house. I’m not saying that this will happen for everyone, but it’s a great sign for a site that’s only just getting started. Check out ShotHotspot and then come back here and let me know what you think.
The post Finding New Photography Locations Just Got Easier With ShotHotspot by John Davenport appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Earlier I selected and shared some photos of different beverages. There are many ways to photograph beverages and drinks including in the studio, in a restaurant, or outdoors on location.
Your photography challenge this week is to photograph a beverage or drink of your choice, in a way that makes it appealing to the viewer. Make us want to taste that drink. Make us thirsty!
Here are a few more to give you some ideas:
By Thomas Hawk
By Giuseppe Milo
By Dennis Wilkinson
By sakshi sharma
By darwin Bell
By Alyson Hurt
By Roadsidepictures
By Jonathan Cohen
By Kirti Poddar
By Jeremy Brooks
The last two are food articles but the tips apply to drinks as well.
Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section as pictured below) and theyâll get embedded for us all to see or if youâd prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your leading lines using pathways and roads in this week’s challenge.
The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Beverages by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Pick up Oded’s new Snapn Guide (a dPS sister company) Snapn Travel here for only $ 7. A lifetime of travel memories in a Snap.
Traveling is fun and rewarding, but sharing memories of your journeys with friends, family and the world through your own beautiful images can be even better. Especially rewarding are images of the interesting people you meet along the way, because creating travel photography portraits can be an amazing addition to your portfolio.
But, if taking pictures of strangers while interacting with them makes you uneasy, maybe even feeling a bit of fear? GOOD! Then this article is for you.
The world of photography is divided between two groups of people: those who enjoy creating portrait photography and those who do not. Through discussion with my own students I have realized that only about ten percent of those who avoid portrait photography actually do not like it. The remaining ninety percent, so I discovered, are hiding, deep down inside, a photographer who really desires to shoot portraits, especially when he or she travels to interesting and distant places, meeting people from other cultures.
But it is not that easy. Let’s be honest, sometimes it’s super hard. So what we do is we wrap ourselves with excuses like: “I do not feel comfortable with this”,”I do not want to invade a person’s privacy” and as the “golden excuse” we used that one story of someone who shouted at us at some market in Morocco.
First, from my experience, getting yelled at (and all kinds of other problems) only starts when you take photos of someone from a distance and they catch you in the act.
But here is another fact: there is nothing like photographing someone from a close distance. The eyes, the feelings and the huge visual story potential within. Besides, when we work from a close distance while interacting with the person, we gain control of our tools as photographers: composition, background, the “decisive moment” and we also have that amazing ability to tell the photographed person: “you know what, let’s take one more shot”.
In 99% of my travel photography work with magazines, I photograph portraits from a close distance, without hiding myself or hiding the fact I am taking a photo. Now, some will say that when a person sees a camera, it affects the authenticity of the moment. I will address this issue later.
This is the # 1 mistake of bad travel photography: trying to show a story, instead of telling it. Creating a diary instead of evoking feelings. Here is the unpleasant truth; apart from our family and close friends, no one cares where we travel and who we meet along the way. If you want to succeed in exciting your viewers, you need turn to a different approach.
Before the digital era, it was enough if you traveled to the other side of the world and came back with images of people from some exotic tribe. You know, those “colorful” images, of people with a bone stuck in their nose. Today, when almost every corner of our planet has been photographed, this is not enough anymore and we have to return to the basics; to that one element that hasn’t changed since the beginning of time – a story.
We are just obsessed with stories. A person is not only clothes, a Cuban cigar or colorful sari; a person is an entire story. A story is a complex thing to create, so for the first step I will ask that your images be able to answer this question: how does the person in the image feel? Is it a comedy or a tragedy? Has he just finished a day of hard work or is he enjoying a vacation? Look at the person’s body language and listen to his voice. Try to convey the type of feeling you had while meeting this person.
Remember the following equation – if you have a telephoto lens, you will to use it, because that is the easiest way of shooting people, from a distance. Instead, go with a wide lens (up to 50 mm for full frame, 35mm for cropped sensor). Also, try to avoid complicated and sophisticated equipment like flash and tripods. This will attract unwanted attention in the streets and you will be busy handling the gear instead of focusing on the story in front of you.
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Yes, in India they wear sari and in Cuba they smoke cigars. To get a more in-depth story of the culture, you have to learn about it first. Prior to your trip, do a brief study of the place you are about to visit. View images, read material and mainly, answer important questions like:
In order to answer these questions you can ask someone who visited the destination or look for information on the web. If you do not know anything about the culture, you will fall into the clichĂ© of photogenic tourist traps. But if you come with knowledge, it will affect your photography. My editor at the National Geographic Traveler magazine calls this “photographic intelligence”. Go the extra mile and read about the history of the place, the religious system, the food and the local music, which leads me to our next tip.
Recently I photographed a story on the Dominican Republic. It was the first time I worked on this side of the world and suddenly I felt as if I almost forgot how to take pictures. I did not approach anyone and at first, my photography did not come out well at all. So, I just listened to some local music on my headphones. I do not recommend staying with headphones all the time, because it cuts you off from the environment. But for the first day, it’s a great tip; it puts you in the groove and makes you feel good. In conclusion, on the first day of your trip, do not trouble yourself with approaching strangers. Relax, listen to the local music, get into the groove and warm up with easier image making: buildings, landscape, food, etc.
The meaning of “Photography” is drawing with light. Even the most photogenic person will not look good in unsuitable light. There are no rules about lighting â no “good” or “bad”. There is appropriate and inappropriate lighting, because light has varying qualities: color, direction, strength, softness, etc. According to most photographers, the best light for most situations is within the “golden hours”: around sunrise and sunset. If this is your first time approaching people in order to photograph them, let the light be on your side. Try adjusting the correct time to go outside. If you cannot control the time (like when on an organized tour) try to photograph people in the shade.
After a day of listening to the local music, getting the groove and warming up with easy shots, it is time to start working. Do not delay it, even if it is very hard for you. Just fake it until you make it:
Choose: choose a person you would like to photograph. Donât use excuses like: “I canât find anyone special”. Just make the shot, even if it’s only for practice. It is very important that you choose a person who is not on the move, because you need to get ready BEFORE approaching him, so it will be easier in a static situation (a seller in market stand, or someone relaxing at the park)Now, you might get a NO for an answer. That’s okay! Say “thank you” and then just “get back on the horse”, move on to the next person. You might get a YES. That’s wonderful! Relax, think about the framing and make the image.
It’s True. Usually when a person is asked to be photographed, they will put on a “mask”. You can call it their pose. Sometimes this pose might be the thing you are looking for. When photographing two men for a story I did in India for the National Geographic Traveler magazine, that pose (image below), which is so typical for the Rabari tribe men, was perfect for the story I wanted to tell.
If you donât want the pose, my solution – give your subject time and space. Do not stop him or her from making that pose. Give them a positive feedback and show them how nice the first photo came out. From my experience, after a minute or two, the masks fall. That is because someone eventually will enter your subject’s shop, or they will receive a phone call or anything that might make your subject forget you are still there. This is the moment of magic. This is when the best pictures happen.
Pick up Oded’s new Snapn Guide (a dPS sister company) Snapn Travel here for only $ 7. A lifetime of travel memories in a Snap
The post Overcoming the Fear â Creating Better Travel Photography Portraits by Oded Wagenstein appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Have you ever found yourself in a relationship that’s not really working, or a job that has you feeling trapped? Or maybe your day in, day out lifestyle has you feeling glib.
Whatever the case may be, we’ve all been there. We use different things to cope. Some people drink, while others go to therapy or journal. Well, there is a way that photography can play a part in raising you up out of that negative mindset.
When I was a new mom, my son Max was not really napping. It was driving me absolutely crazy. So I decided to take my iPhone to nap time and when he fell asleep Iâd take a photograph. When I saw the photo, I realized that I was so caught up in what I wanted to do that I was missing this very sacred moment between the two of us. It became a three year photo project, and changed my own perception of what was important. I teach a course called In Plain Sight that was inspired by this experience. Below I share some tips from that course, and my own life, so that you can partake in the transformation as well.
You can use whatever camera you wish, and you donât need to be a pro photographer to make this work for you. I used my iPhone for the Nap series and it worked perfectly.
Here are 10 tips on how to use the camera as a tool for transformation:
Identify what the issue is that you want to focus on. Letâs say youâre in the middle of a bad breakup, or you’re moving across country. That’s going to be the topic of your photography project.
Instead of taking photos of that person, or of the things about this situation that drive you mad, instead, focus on how to create a gorgeous photograph of the thing that is frustrating you the most. Sounds pretty hard doesnât it? But if you detach a bit from the story line, and start to look at things through your viewfinder as a photographer, youâll find light wrapping itself around the subject in a way that means more than it did before.
Make this an investigative process. What could you learn every day about your life and how light, composition, shadows, objects, and the space around these objects all intersect with the story line thatâs running in your head?
Remove the details that donât serve the photograph. See what can be said with less.
Notice when things are illuminated and how that plays a roll in creating a more dramatic or emotional image.
No need to just snap a billion photos. Take one a day. Be thoughtful and on purpose.
Move around your subject to find the best way to express the emotion. Donât just hold up the camera and take the photo. Be more in charge of what you create and remember that you can change your vantage point.
Keep all of your images in a folder on your computer and label them with the date and time you took the photo. Over time you will start to see something emerge that you didnât expect. Something shifting about how you view this situation. A deeper awareness of who you are, and what this situation wants to tell you.
Post your photos daily on your Instagram feed, and make up a hashtag for the project. People will want to join in and itâs actually an amazing thing to get feedback and support as you move through this process.
You donât have to stop at 30 days. My Nap Series turned into a three year project. The frustrating situation may stay the same, but you will have a new relationship with it. Itâs about progress rather than perfection. If you miss some days, itâs no big deal. Youâre not getting graded. This is for you. My Nap series is not a perfect daily project. I missed days for sure, but the transformation happened regardless.
So just keep going and pay attention to what the photographs are telling you. The shift will happen and youâll be amazed before you are half way through. Youâll be more present for the moments that matter and be a little more curious within the areas of life that are triggering you. Youâll see them in a new light.
The post 10 Tips on How to use Photography as a Tool for Personal Transformation by Catherine Just appeared first on Digital Photography School.
The colour and texture of birds’ plumage makes them fascinating subjects for photography, made all the more exciting by their fleeting and elusive nature. With a lot of patience and practice, and the help of these tips, you’ll soon be on your way to making memorable photographs of our feathered friends.
To capture the best bird photography, the most important thing you’ll need is a lens with a very long focal length. How long, exactly? Generally, the longer the better for maximum magnification. But keep in mind that lenses get remarkably heavy – if you’re hiking up a mountain, it might not be practical to carry an extreme telephoto lens, which can weigh in at over ten pounds.
A 70-300mm zoom lens is one of my favourites because it is very versatile and some of them are fairly lightweight. But you’ll get a sharper image with a fixed focal length lens. I recommend trying out a 300mm or 400mm prime lens.
The extra weight of a long lens will increase the likelihood of hand shake blur, which will then be magnified by the distance between you and your subject. If you’re working with a heavy lens, a tripod or monopod will be a great benefit for taking the weight of the lens.
If you want the increased flexibility you’ll get by not using a tripod or monopod, be sure to use a very fast shutter speed to compensate for the hand shake blur.
When photographing birds, using shutter priority mode and a fast shutter speed will ensure you are ready for any action that might happen, even if the bird is standing still at the moment. You never know when it will take flight and you want to be ready when that happens.
Using a wide aperture like f/2.8 or f/4 will give you a shallow depth of field, which helps to isolate the bird from its background and direct attention to its shape and colour.
When you want to have total control over the shutter speed and aperture, use manual mode and set the ISO to auto. That way, the camera will decide which ISO is the best to balance the exposure.
If you have a colourful sky, one option to try is to expose for the sky and allow the bird or birds to become silhouettes.
How you focus on your subjects will depend on which approach you’re taking, as well as what equipment you have. Some lenses and some camera bodies auto focus faster, and much more accurately than others, so some experimentation is needed to get a sense of how quickly your auto focus motor moves.
Birds are moving subjects, so if you do use auto focus, change it to the “continuous focus” mode (usually called AF-C or AI Servo) which tracks motion. However, you might find that you get better results by learning to focus manually.
There should be an AF/MF switch on your camera and/or lens. If you switch it to MF (manual focus), you can turn the focus ring on your lens to adjust it by hand. This is fairly easy when your subject is still, but it takes a lot of practice to be able to do this quickly enough to lock in on a moving subject.
One method is to set up a perch (such as a bird feeder), with your camera on a tripod, and pre-frame and pre-focus your shot where the bird will be. When it lands, you just have to hit the shutter. There will be no focusing delay, so you can get the exact moment you have been waiting for.
Birds are very active in the spring – the ground softens, plants and seeds starting coming out, and bugs are everywhere. They finally get the feast they’ve been struggling to find all winter. Similarly, in autumn they are avidly gathering food before the frost sets in. Both of these seasons are the best for finding birds near the ground – and whatever the time of year, early mornings and sunny days will draw the most action.
You might get lucky walking along a forest path, making photos of birds as you see them, but because birds see us as predators they will usually flee at the sound of our footsteps.
Instead, you may have better luck by finding a location birds enjoy, hiding yourself, and waiting. This is where the patience comes in to play! The better you hide yourself, the safer they will feel coming near you. Tuck yourself in next to a tree or bush, or hide behind a blind to camouflage yourself, and try to stay as still and quiet as possible.
One of the best places to start photographing birds might be your own backyard. Keep your camera handy with the right lens and camera settings for bird photography so that when one lands in your yard, you’re ready.
You can also seek them out in their natural habitats such as local forests, waterways, and beaches. You can find exotic and interesting species by visiting zoos, bird sanctuaries, and humane societies, or you can take a trip to a nearby national park or nature preserve. Birds that live in areas with more frequent human visitors will likely be less skittish and camera-shy.
Take care not to neglect your background. It should be clean and simple. Too much clutter will distract attention from the subject itself. Use your perspective and point of view to remove unwanted background objects from the frame, and choose a large aperture to blur them out.
Do you have any other bird photography tips you’d like to add to this list? Please share in the comments below.
The post Bird Photography Tips for Beginners by Anne McKinnell appeared first on Digital Photography School.
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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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