Water birds

Hi, I am new to this forum so forgive me if this request for help is in the wrong place.
I take lots of photo's of birds but there are some birds that I just cannot capture perfectly. The main two are Egrets and Herons. No matter what I do, every photo is blurred. I have tried pretty well everything I can think of plus advice from friends but nothing works. I'm wondering now if perhaps it has something to do with Contrast as estuary water is usually rather grey, like the background, or washed out. I usually use my 55-300mm lens which isn't the best but I have no trouble with in other situations. Is there a technique I can use to overcome this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Hi, welcome. Post a photo with all of your settings including focus mode used. Egrets and herons are the only birds that seem to pose for me, lol. I'm still learning. The two guesses are your shutter speed is too slow or you missed focus. There should not be any particular problem over water. There are a couple herons in my gallery and MANY in the bird threads.

Denis said:

Hi, I am new to this forum so forgive me if this request for help is in the wrong place.
I take lots of photo's of birds but there are some birds that I just cannot capture perfectly. The main two are Egrets and Herons. No matter what I do, every photo is blurred. I have tried pretty well everything I can think of plus advice from friends but nothing works. I'm wondering now if perhaps it has something to do with Contrast as estuary water is usually rather grey, like the background, or washed out. I usually use my 55-300mm lens which isn't the best but I have no trouble with in other situations. Is there a technique I can use to overcome this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Well, I may just be the man to help you here.

I fought with this myself as seen in my thread. I urge you to read it and read closely the advice given me in that thread. I took that advice.

http://nikonites.com/wild-life/17882-my-bird-shots-just-horrible-i-need-some-help.html

Please post the settings you use to shoot birds and I bet you I can help you a lot.


To start with I will offer this:

- Even with a 55-300mm lens you need to be within 20 or 30 yards of the bird if it is a large bird. Small birds you need to be within 15 feet. If you cant come close to filling the viewfinder with the birds body you won't be able to crop close enough to make the shot look good.

- Back your zoom off a little. Don't zoom all the way to 300mm. Use it at 280mm or 275mm instead. Makes a difference.

- Use Single Point Auto Focus set to AF-C (continuous). Forget the Dynamic or 3D tracking stuff.

- Use at least f6.7 and f/8 is better still.

- Shutter speed should not drop below 1/1000th second. Use camera in Aperture Priority set to f/8 and set ISO to 800 or even 1600 and then set the shutter speed to not go below 1/1000th.

- If shooting a white bird against a dark background use -1 EV exposure compensation. If shooting against a blue or bright sky set +1.5 or even +2 EV exposure compensation.

- Almost all photos will need some post process adjustment. Adjust levels, saturation, contrast, shadows and add some kind of sharpening. I use Light Room and Photoshop.

Using the help I received I went from

This type shot, basically blurry and not so sharp and no shadow detail:




To consistently this type of shot that needed almost no sharpening and only minor Levels adjustment.

What Miked90 said...everyone here has been where you are now.Time,experience and knowing your camera are the keys to getting a good shot,take heart and read the forum Mike90 gave you the link to,it will answer almost all your questions and soon you will be shooting awesome pics,just like Mike....and dont get frustrated,what you see in the forums here and flickr etc,are the best shots,you gotta see how many I have to wade through to get one good one ...the people here are an awesome group,I joined about two months ago and have already made a few friends and picked up tips,they(we) are always willing to help,which you do not find on alot of these forum sites

i noticed a little improvement when i use a tripod, this is defo better for still birds, catching them in flight takes a little more getting used to, just keep at it.

What I had to understand was this; Birds have a lot of detail in their "construction". Unlike other animals you need to have the entire body in sharp focus for most photos of a bird. To get the entire body in focus you need an aperture of f/8 or f/11 to give you that much depth of field at the distance you shoot from.

You still focus on the eyes though. Focus must be sharp at the eye(s) or all is lost. But, the more of the bird in focus the better the photo.

Birds move fast and unpredictably. Faster shutter speed freezes this movement and any camera shake that you will induce.

There is a price for this though. You will need to up your ISO to allow it to go to 800 or even 1600 to get exposure. This will give you some grain and noise but software can remove almost all of it.

White birds are easy to lose the details in. They tend to over expose.

Best of all, and I say it again, is to get close. The closer the better. You lens will have a "sweet spot" and it won't be at full zoom length or at widest aperture.

Hi Miked90. Thanks for your response. I read your thread and found it interesting and I'll work on what is said, especially the iso idea, I haven't messed around with that although I do usually have it set at 400. The shots I seem to have most problems with are: egrets which are very white against a dull grey, washed out background and Herons, being gray, against a generally dark background. This is why I wondered about contrast being part of the problem at least. At the places I generally go to it is not possible to get close up, 20 yards is about the best and I have learned not to take the 300 out to full zoom. I will experiment more using your advice and that of the others, I'm determined to get some decent pics. I will post one or two of the best bird shots I have taken. Thanks again.

If you could post photos with the settings used then we can tell you exactly what is going on and how to rectify it.