how do you photograph birds??

ChloeG

ChloeG

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ChloeG
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this is something i've started to try and do more and more on my dog walks/wanderings with a camera in my hand. thankfully the dogs im with aren't too noisy and neither am i, we often to secluded areas such as the canal (busiest location but great for seeing swans ducks geese ect) the local woods that has a footpath, and some farmers fields. and i'm really starting to yearn for a photo of a bird taking off. thankfully my camera should allow that but no matter how sneaky i am or how much i zoom to a tree in the distance i always seem to miss it. so how do you do it so far i've only got these to show for

https://www.flickr.com/gp/133360989@N03/f07id9 and https://www.flickr.com/gp/133360989@N03/WnKH66

thankfully my boyfriends step dad does keep pigeions so i will most likely take advantage of that one morning and get up with him to let the pigeons out to exersise can only imagine how nice of a photo that would make. but in the mean time anyone else got any tips for techniques or tricks that worked for them ?
 
I see you have ducks and water - try taking some food for them and the ducks might well fly towards you and provide the perfect opportunity for take-off photos.
 
What camera and lens are you using?
 
I will second the advice for using food - "bird seed" is better for ducks, and will attract a few land birds as well.

I generally photograph perched or standing birds with a very narrow angle ("long lens") and I get the occasional take off if/when I pull the shutter at the right moment. The other trick is a short exposure time (sport mode is useful if you are new or your camera doesn't have professional-type controls).

You really do need the best equipment you can afford in the telephoto or even super-telephoto range, the better it is the more detail (feathers etc.) you can get. If you can't justify the cost of a SLR system, a "superzoom" with at least 50x optical zoom will give decent results (I carry a Canon SX60 for backup and it gives decent results).
 
The exif says the OP has Panasonic TZ35 and good though that may be for many subjects with a shutter lag of 0.2 second I fear Chloe will struggle to get the takeoff shots of birds she wants to achieve.
 
i'm having a lot of luck using burst mode to take a quick blast of photos on the go of a moving subject. i'll try the bird seed/food idea i'll have to tie the labs a bit away id imagine food (and flying food at that) and moving "STUFF" may just be too much for them and the birds.

will shutter priority be the "sports" mode your refering to?

unfortunatly im not going to be updating or getting a new camera any time soon not until i get a good hold of the basics the majority of my skill is being able to get my camera in burst mode and to adjust the exsposure other than that a lot goes over my head so if i can grasp that stuff then i could get myself a DSLR or something of the likes

i do have a good amount of zoom to play with like (least i thought i did) 20 optical and 40 'intelligant' zoom has served me well so far but do you not think this would cover shots at a nearer dista
 
ChloeG said:
i'm having a lot of luck using burst mode to take a quick blast of photos on the go of a moving subject. i'll try the bird seed/food idea i'll have to tie the labs a bit away id imagine food (and flying food at that) and moving "STUFF" may just be too much for them and the birds.

will shutter priority be the "sports" mode your refering to?
Click to expand...

Shutter priority (also called Tv) is actually one of the "pro" modes - it allows you to set the exposure time. One of your shots is 1/1300, which means 1/1300th of a second - a very short exposure. Normally 1/500 is ideal, or slightly shorter (about 1/1000) on very bright sunny days.

Sport mode is usually the one with the athlete symbol, and is intended for fast-moving subjects with relatively little experience. Unfortunately, I don't know much about the specifics of Panasonic cameras, but if you can find out how to call up the details on review then that could be fed forwards into settings for Tv mode.
 
The thing about bird photography is it takes lots and lots of patience and what is called fieldcraft. I have never got a great shot of anything birdlike while simply out for a walk and certainly not with dogs in tow.

The great images you see are most probably taken by someone who has been sat in a hide for hours on end and from a distance of less than a few meters and typically with several thousands of pounds worth of camera. Often people set up bird feeding stations in their garden with some natural looking sticks for the birds to land on for the natural look.

I'm not saying you won't be able to get pictures you are happy with but it really isn't as easy as taking a camera along for a walk.
 
The family and me have been on about making our normally bird busy garden even busier by feeding them so hopefully I might be able to sit and wait at the other end of the garden and they could help make some nice shots at least at first. I did think that the dogs would impact a lot of the bird behaviour around me more than I already would anyway.

Hmm never seen any sports mode I'll have a look in the instructions the only modes on the "dial" are aperture priority, shutter priority, manual exposure, custom one, custom two, panorama mode, scene mode (which lets you choose if your taking photos of your pets, underwater, night scenery, high ISO sensitivity ect never really looked at that section before will defiantly have a play about with that), creative control, program AE
 
@ChloeG don't know if you live near the sea ?
Gulls are great for practicing in flight pictures, quite slow and predictable
Dogs will love it too n(y)
 
no gulls but we do get a lot of rook and jackdores (Sp) as well as blackbirds, robins, family of magpies in our gardens and lots of tits and sparrows and little things like that were sort of urban area with access to small patches of woodlands and fields so wide variety of birds around. i think i may ask to go to the boyfriends and see if i can go in the pigeion huts and observe maybe catch a few photos i think that would be a good learning curb for me even if it is captive conditions might just draw me into birds rather than just dogs (thats literally all i have photos of dogs two birds and grass/plants when there's rain dropletsand a few tropical fish of mine) so another subject is needed
 
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