One of my New Year's resolutions for 2023 was to more seriously explore bird photography. Now that we're well and truly into the new year, let's take stock of how my bird photography has evolved.
When you set yourself goals, it's obviously not a bad thing to measure your progress toward reaching those goals. After all, when the excitement of making resolutions for the new year has worn off, it's all too easy to forget about those goals. So now that we're into the month of May, how is my bird photography evolving? Has it changed? Is it any better? What areas do I need to improve on?
Let me start with saying that bird photography has become addictive. I knew my new OM-1 camera was well suited for this genre of photography, but it's turning out to be a real joy to use. And, best of all, what is more exciting than going out into nature and photograph some of the world's most beautiful creatures?
Appreciation for Bird Photography
My appreciation for bird photography has grown significantly this year. Being more focused on this genre makes you realise how much skill and experience is required to take a bird shot that truly captures the eye (and the imagination). That "bird on a stick" photo might be nice, but it doesn't make your bird photography stand out. Don't get me wrong, a well taken picture of a beautiful bird on a tree branch that's sharp and well composed can be great to look at. However, all too often this doesn't bring out the habitat or natural behaviour of the bird, let alone an element of surprise or excitement. You end up with a static portrait that is not going to keep the viewer's eye for too long. It is a true skill to capture a unique and perhaps unexpected moment that shows a more dynamic and interesting side of the bird and the habitat it lives in. It could be a bird in flight scene that showcases the shape and colour of its wings, a bird that's caught in the act of catching a prey, the interaction of a bird with other birds, or a bird in a stunning landscape that accentuates its habitat.
For full disclosure, I have not yet grown out of that "bird on a stick" stage and I'm still thrilled with good shots in this category. There is much work ahead of me to grow past this stage, but there are moments when I see glimpses of that future. It's an exciting journey that I'm on and I can't wait to see the progress that I will hopefully be able to make.
Oh, let's not forget that with an appreciation for bird photography comes an appreciation for nature as well. Bird photography forces you to get out there and look for those birds. The local forests, nature reserves, lakes, beaches, and coastal areas become your "office". Isn't that preferable to studio photography?
Recognising the Bird Species
Now this is a huge learning curve for me. Sure, I can recognise a rainbow lorikeet, a sulphur-crested cockatoo, a kookaburra, or a galah. However, it gets real tricky real quick for me. Coming home from photo shoots and processing my pictures I often find myself googling the species. Especially recognising the many sub-species of a bird can be a very daunting task for me. After all, there are hundreds of bird species in Australia.
Take for example the fairy-wrens that live in Australia: there are superb fairy-wrens, splendid fairy-wrens, purple-crowned fairy-wrens, red-backed fairy wrens, white-winged fairy-wrens, lovely fairy-wrens, purple-backed fairy-wrens, blue-breasted fairy-wrens, and many more. And that's just the fairy-wrens. How can I possibly remember and recognise all of them?
Yes, I get it. There are many excellent birding books, the internet, and other tools available to help me out, including some very good birding apps for smartphones. Still, it would be nice to recognise more bird species without resorting to my smartphone or books. I'm confident though that as I spend more time in the field, I'm going to become a better birder.
Camera Settings and Post-Processing
For my bird photography I have settled on the following camera settings. I have saved these as one of the custom settings on my camera, so it only takes the turn of a dial to have my camera in "bird mode".
Manual mode
Shutter speed: 1/3200 second
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: auto (capped at 3,200)
Bird subject detection
Continuous auto-focus
Sequential shooting
With these settings as a starting point I then adjust them based on the circumstances. For example, for stationary birds I pick a much lower shutter speed, when I want to more clearly isolate the bird from the background I usually use f4, and with very fast moving birds I switch to high-speed sequential shooting (which is amazing on the OM-1 with up to 120 frames per second). I have found this works quite well in the real world.
For the post-processing of my images I use a combination of Adobe Lightroom Classic, Adobe Photoshop, and DxO PureRAW. Since I often end up shooting birds at higher ISO values given light conditions, I'm finding DxO PureRAW a real lifesaver (see my Pixel Peeping Noise blog post for more about DxO). Adobe Lightroom has recently come out with significantly better denoising capabilities but my computer is unfortunately starting to show its age. It takes more than 15 minutes to denoise a single picture in Lightroom, whereas in DxO v2 it "only" takes 1.5 minute and in DxO v3 around 5 minutes. DxO it is then.
Longer Lens?
My bird photography lens is the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 PRO combined with a 1.4x extender. I'm finding this an excellent combination in many situations, but do wish the reach was a little longer at times. Olympus offers the 150-400mm f.4.5 PRO lens with a built-in 1.25x converter, but that comes at an eye watering price of $12,000 in Australia. No, let me be fair: you actually get a dollar change out of $12,000. It still breaks the bank.
An alternative would potentially be the Olympus 100-400mm f5-6.3. Keeping the crop factor of micro four-thirds cameras in mind, this is equivalent to a 200-800mm lens on a full frame camera, and with my 1.4x extender that turns into an almost insane 280-1120mm reach. It's not a very bright lens though (especially with the extender attached), so this all comes with some trade-offs. The jury is still out...
Next Steps
With all that said, what are the next steps on my bird photography journey for the remainder of this year?
Without shame I can confidently state that I need to learn to take better shots of birds on a stick. While arguably not the most exciting aspect of bird photography, I strongly believe I need to become a master of the basics before moving on to more dynamic and challenging types of bird photography. It allows me to hone my skills and practice my technique in a not too daunting setting.
Moving on from birds on a stick, capturing birds in flight is next level for me. While I have been able to take a good number of pleasing shots of flying birds, there is still much to learn and practice. I'm relatively ok shooting slower and larger birds in flight, but smaller and faster species still challenge me to a large extent.
As mentioned before, I really need to get more familiar with the bird species in my area. A good bird photographer not only masters the technical aspects of this genre of photography, but also has a deep understanding of bird behaviour. They know when the birds are most active, when and where they hunt or search for food, what noise they make, what their courtship behaviour is, and so much more. It allows them to anticipate what a bird might do next and capture that perhaps not so "unexpected" shot.
If you are on your own bird photography journey, I wish you all the best and good luck. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
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