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February 9, 2007
Friday Feathers - Closeups
I never intended to photograph birds. I'd been caught up in photographing deer and shooting what I considered portraits of them. Unfortunately the deer never showed up one day and I wanted to shoot something, anything other than trees, plants, leaves, etc. The birds were all around and I thought it would be an excellent challenge for me to get a decent shot of them.
My first photographs of birds were taken with a Sony Cybershot. Though it's a decent digital camera, it's not exactly the ultimate when it comes to bird photography. You're severely limited by the simple fact that you cannot change the lens -- it is what it is. When I got the Nikon D50, you can imagine how delighted I was to be using a camera where I could change the lens!
The first lens I got after the 18-55mm that came with the D50 was a 70-300mm, a lightweight lens that helped me get closer to my subject. Then came the 200-500mm lens and, well, I was in heaven... kind of. I knew the power of that lens and about the only complaint I have about it is its weight. Though hand-held shots are indeed possible, you really have to concentrate on keeping that lens steady in your hands, or else. Using a tripod with a lens that large would be the norm, but I've yet to become best buddies with my tripod simply because I find using one extremely limiting. I think I see too many disasters waiting to happen, such as rushing to get a shot of a bird only to knock the tripod over, sending the camera and that big lens crashing to the ground. *shudder* The other thing is that it is not easy to follow a bird in flight when the camera isn't hand-held. You have to be able to maneuver the camera sometimes in a split second otherwise you miss the shot -- and I've missed many because I couldn't flex the tripod fast enough.
When it became evident that I was hooked on photographing birds (though I still photograph deer whenever they're around), I went to the bookstore in search of books written by bird photographers. I found one that became my bible. It is written by David Tipling, a professional wildlife photographer. Mr. Tipling shares a wealth of valuable information in his book, and the photographs he's taken are spectacular. The one tip that popped out for me (remember I am a beginner here) is to focus on the bird's eyes.
I got into the habit of zooming in on a bird's head. I was going for that shot where you could actually see the color of a bird's eyes. Some are black, some are brown, some are yellow. Who knew? The eyes were never the primary focus for me; instead I was attempting the bird-in-flight shots or a full-body, standing still one. Then I moved to closeups, and I now have a folder of headshots that have become favorites. The red-bellied woodpecker in the shot above has become an all-time fave, as this particular woodpecker has afforded me numerous opportunities to photograph it, resulting in a number of photos I'm particularly proud of.
Cindy
Comments
You oughta be proud--this is amazing! Good stuff.
Brain matter deposited by: susan on February 9, 2007 11:34 AM
awesome .. you might consider getting a cheap monopod for the lens .. I tried one with my camera body at the races and it leveled out my pans but since I have smaller/lighter lenses I haven't used it much since then.
I'm surprised you don't focus on their lips ;)
Brain matter deposited by: sdy on February 10, 2007 2:25 AM
that is a superb photo - Q is learning how to take better pictures too and his main complaint is about the weight of the lense. i've never seen him actually use his tripod, but it must be useful when taking pictures of 'stills'. he's too lazy to get out and do that though ;)
Brain matter deposited by: zed on February 10, 2007 7:40 AM