Wedding tog tries his hand at shooting birds

Mark1616

I think the title says it all. I don't shoot wildlife, however I had a bit of a gap in my weekend so decided I would go and try something completely different from the norm. This is down at Bournville lake which is only about 3 mins drive from where I am at the moment.

I struggled hugely with exposure, as there were trees causing large amounts of shade then strong sunlight. I played with manual and also Av with exposure comp..... nothing was ideal but I got some shots I'm pretty happy with.

I plan to have another bash so would appreciate any thoughts to help me improve next time. Oh and I know these are mainly gulls so not exciting, however there were lots and it let me practise tracking them in flight. I most enjoyed trying to capture the chases that took place when one of the birds had food, and also the first photo here which is where a larger gull came along and was promptly chased away.

There are more on my blog if you are interested.

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7 Not sure what is going on here but made a good splash!


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Harryb

Good set Mark. Getting proper exposure on white birds with dark BG can be tough. I do OK by shooting in aoerture priority and making EV adjustments.

Netgarden

You did a fine job, Mark. You happen to choose fast moving white birds and thats not so easy! Birding and wildlife seems to get easier with the hours you put in to it. There is some memorization to the best settings per light available. And then that all changes with white birds!

I've always said, if you can get detail in white birds or black birds the rest is easy.

The thing we begin to realize over time is the challenge is not only the photography but finding the unusual. The hunt. It reminds me of a sport. Requiring quick thinking, sharp concentration and anticipation. We have to know our target like an athlete knows his competition. It's a whole lot tougher than sports photography where you have time for light settings, and knowing exactly where to shoot. I like it because it's challenging, and has surprises. And of course the sport I used to play was outdoors, [beach volleyball] so I love the outdoors/peace thing.[,,don't have to deal with humans, lol]

Looking at your exif, one thing, you might try an aperture around f6.3 if your shutterspeed is above 1/3000, [yours was around 1/6000, at 2.8-which you don't need that high a shutterspeed]because you will get a little more focal area in the bird, so overall a little more detail.
Enjoy! You did great!

kitvan

Wow, these are awesome! I recently gained a new appreciation for photographers who pursue bird photography. Can be extremely challanging. Well done.

Mark1616

Sorry for the slow reply guys, I didn't get the notifications. Really pleased you like these, it was a blast and hopefully tomorrow I will get out and shoot a few more.

Linda, I was running the wider aperture not for shutter speed but because the background wasn't the best in quite a few shots as it was messy and pretty close to the subjects, so was trying to lose it as much as I could.