City bird life

[Davejl]

Today was my first outing of 2016 with the camera, because the weather has been diabolical most of the time. I took quite a lot of bird shots by the river which runs through the city centre. Still got lots to process.


Pigeons waiting for a feed


Gulls eating spaghetti

[Shadowman]

Nice start to the year, nice captures.

[ionian]

Wonderful symmetry in that first image Dave. There may be good reason for it, but is there a way it could be cropped a little wider, on all four sides? It feels a little tight. Having said that I've started with a criticism and the image doesn't deserve it, I think it's a beautiful capture with lovely colours and great form, so consider it a minor point.

Nice detail in the second image too, but I love that top picture.

[Davejl]

Thanks Simon.

It was a question of snapping away before another passer-by with food (or even the possibility of food) caused the birds to explode into the air. So the tight left side of the image is as taken, and I decided to crop a little on the right for symmetry. The bottom was as taken. I cropped the top a bit because there were distracting highlights from some metalwork on a bridge.

Dave

[Geoff F]

Yes, the first image is good and shows all four sides of a pigeon.

Your subjects weren't cooperating with you for the second shot so although you have managed good exposure and correct focus on the main subjects there are some distracting foreground elements, such as out of focus birds with bums forward, which does distract from the overall scene.

With that sort of scene, I shoot loads of angles and various zooms in the hope that I end up with one or two where the subjects have aligned themselves into a good composition. But you have to expect a lot of rejects.

Maybe crop differently, with another size ratio and lose a bit from the sides to concentrate on the two main subject birds?

[Davejl]

Hi Geoff,

I agree with you. I did in fact take loads of shots, so there may be others that are a bit better. What I really wanted was some decent shots of birds in flight, but again I have lots with many out-of-focus birds in. I'm fairly new to this sort of shooting: much of my photography has been church interiors with tripod, mirror lock-up and cable shutter release. Most of my bird photos have been of solitary swans or geese, but not this sort of bird-melee. Must practice more!

Dave

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Dave,

I like the first one too.

However, if this were mine, I'd crop the left hand bird off entirely and leave a composition containing just the three. Perhaps also just the merest slither of the bottom edge too; reducing the gap between tail feathers and frame by one quarter.

One thing I like about the shot, which is more apparent with my suggested crop, is that the right hand bird has the shadow of another almost perfectly on its chest.

The second one I find just too much of a bird-melee, I'm afraid.

Cheers, Dave

[Geoff F]

Birds in flight are difficult and I get a lot of rejects.

It needs a good lens; I use a 150-600 on a 7D MkII but with tamer subjects it is possible to get by with as little as 200 mm for single birds or small groups.

Fast shutter speeds are needed. I reckon 1/1000 is the minimum for gliding birds and twice that if they are flapping their wings. Correct exposure can be a problem so I often use partial metering or add a bit of exposure compensation with evaluative metering; but that can require quick changes as you follow a bird against varying backgrounds.

An auto focus setting which gives continuous focus on moving subjects such as AI Servo (different names with various cameras) will help as you lock on and pan to follow your selected target.

Shots of multiple birds in flight can also work but you then need a good depth of focus from a narrow aperture so higher Iso settings may be needed. I usually switch to shutter speed priority but always keep an eye on my aperture as well.

Birds in a group which are taking off or landing can make a good subject, providing you have sufficient focus depth.

[Davejl]

Hi Dave,

Thanks, yes, I'll try that crop as you suggest. I do like the fact that in the original there are birds effectively looking four ways, as Geoff points out. On the other hand, I don't much like wider aspect crops like mine. As for the melee of birds, I was trying to capture the sheer chaos of bird activity (and ended up with a chaotic shot!).

Dave

[Davejl]

Hi Geoff,

Thanks for the tips. I took these shots with my Canon 70-300 lens. One of the problems with this location was that the photos were shot from the towpath beside the river, which is reasonably narrow except where steps go down to it. Also, the sun was shining up the river. This meant that I was quite limited in the ability to move around.

I have a Sigma 150-500 lens with which I've taken some bird "portraits" that I'm quite pleased with, but I haven't tried it for birds-in-action shots. In fact, it is so heavy that I'm afraid it doesn't get out too often! (though your lens and camera sound even heavier).

I'll have to go to the local nature park where conditions are much more open, to practise panning shots. The only problem there is that the council has spent a good deal of effort over the years trying to discourage bad bird feeding practices, so there are comparatively few swans nowadays (they seem to have migrated to the city centre instead!).

Dave

[IzzieK]

You know...looking at the first one again for the umpteenth time, I think I am beginning to like it because the two birds at the sides becomes the frame for the two in the middle. There is no way to make this shot better in pp other than cropping the two framing birds and leaving the ones in the middle. I like it the way it is now...the second one, it is a melee of birds, nothing much to crow about. Maybe I should look closer at that to see what beauty it may have been hiding there..

[Wavelength]

Nice pair of images

[Geoff F]

What I often do with my big lens, Dave, is to shoot on a tripod but without the locking levers fully tightened (particularly effective with ball heads) so I can easily swivel the lens just like hand holding but without the weight. Usually I have the OS switched on for these shots.

Just out of interest, there are some bird shot failures on my messed up photos thread. Seeing what other people get totally wrong may give you some encouragement.

Another great scene messed up by sloppy shooting!

ps. I started with the Sigma 150-500 lens which can work OK providing you have sufficient light to shoot around F8 to F11 area.

[Davejl]

What I often do with my big lens, Dave, is to shoot on a tripod but without the locking levers fully tightened (particularly effective with ball heads) so I can easily swivel the lens just like hand holding but without the weight. Usually I have the OS switched on for these shots.

Just out of interest, there are some bird shot failures on my messed up photos thread. Seeing what other people get totally wrong may give you some encouragement.

Another great scene messed up by sloppy shooting!

ps. I started with the Sigma 150-500 lens which can work OK providing you have sufficient light to shoot around F8 to F11 area.

Thanks Geoff.

I'll give the tripod a try. I shot hand-held today with the Sigma 150-500, ISO 400, F8. It was very bright and the shortest exposure I got was 1/2500 sec.

Dave

[NorthernFocus]

I like the various poses by the pigeons all in one shot. The second one is just mayhem.