Photographing Birds in the Bush

What do you do when your camera keeps “searching” for a focus point?

Auto Focus in modern DSLR cameras is usually highly reliable and lightning fast. It’s easy to get spoiled using it. However, certain situations can confuse auto focus, causing the mechanism to continually search and struggle for a focus point. 3 examples are:

1. Some “thing” is close to and overlapping the front of your subject.
2. Wind, heavy rain and/or snow may be blowing, creating a chaotic scene on which to focus.
3. The light, texture, and/or contrast of the scene are such that it is difficult for the focusing mechanism to “see” and establish focus.

 The camera will not activate the shutter if it can not achieve focus. 

So if your automatic focus will not lock on your subject, you might want to consider switching your lens from (AF) Autofocus to (MF) Manual Focus.

Complete Control of Focus

I’m not a fan of manual focus for 3 reasons:

1. I can’t always tell when I’ve reached tack sharp focus on my subject.
2. Action shots require speed and precision.Unless you pre focus on a “spot” on which you hope your bird will land, you can not manually focus your lens as fast as the auto focus mechanism can. (See Post: How to Photograph Hummingbirds in Flight; 6-18-2013).
3. Even though the functionality is there, modern, quality DSLRs lenses are simply not made to use in manual focus mode. The auto focus technology is too good.

Try Out Manual Focus

I want to keep my photography skills sharp, even if I don’t like a particular function. Plus, there are times when the constant back and forth of auto focus hunting drives me crazy. So I set the 300mm lens to (MF) manual focus for some of the Magnolia Warbler shots.

Immediately, there was a problem. With my eyes, I couldn’t see well enough through the viewfinder to tell if I had sharp focus or not. How can I accurately set manual focus if I can’t see?

Dioptre To the Rescue

I have terrible distance vision without my glasses. A little knob on the top of most modern DSLRs (usually to the right of the viewfinder) called a dioptre can be adjusted to compensate for a photographer’s poor vision. It is a function that lets you clearly see your image through the viewfinder without your glasses on. To compensate for poor vision, I dialed the + or – on the dioptre until my eyes saw the focusing points in the viewfinder as sharp as possible.

Photographing A Hooded Warbler

The height of warbler migration has passed. Still hopeful, I have my 1DX Mark II, 500 mm lens with 1.4 tele extender and flash gear affixed to a tripod and set up half inside, half out on the deck, pointing toward the fountain. My other DSLR, the 5D Mark IV (attached to the 300 mm and flash) is setup in the library and peers through tall (2’x10′) and narrow windows. Those windows permit lots of vertical movement, but very limited maneuverability side to side. It is not unusual for me to miss a shot or to lock focus (based on focus point setup) on a bird and then afterwards see that some of the lens’ field of vision was obstructed by the wood moulding. For the most part, the image is ruined.

Tipping the Tripod

The 300mm on the 5D Mark IV is by far the more manueverable of the two camera setups. The lighter weight allows me to lean the camera every which way by balancing the whole set up on one tripod leg.

When this little Hooded Warbler perched on a branch out of line with the camera’s field of view, I readjusted by tipping the tripod to a loose and shaky one legged position. My view was precarious and wobbly, but the entire frame was clear of the window moulding. It helped a lot that the warbler was patient and unafraid, giving me the time I needed to steady the camera rig and achieve focus.

The flash with extender delivered adequate light, despite the precarious angle of the tripod. I cropped and straightened in post processing in order to fix the perspective of the tilted image. I’m pleased with the results.

Photographing a Kirtland’s Warbler

Have you ever been really good at something – a skill that you’ve worked hard at for years, and then, just because a new and different scenario presented itself, you abandon your serious study, experience, and calm, self assured practices only to misjudge your options and royally screw things up?

We drove up to Hartwick Pines State Park in Grayling, MI to the breeding grounds of the rare Kirtland’s Warbler. The MI DNR offers guided tours starting at 7:00am each morning during the first couple weeks of June.  Around 30 “crazy birders” assembled at the visitors’ center for a quick information session and then we drove to one of the nesting areas approximately 20 miles away.

Kirtland’s Warbler Habitat Considerations

Like other warblers, the Kirtland’s are constantly on the move and careful to stay tucked behind the foliage, mostly near the bottom of the Jack Pine trees. (NOTE: I had imagined that I would have to point the camera way up to get shots of this bird, but the Kirtland’s Warblers are only attracted to a habitat consisting of 80+ acres of young, short Jack Pine trees (5 ft-20 ft. tall)).

#1 Kirtland’s Warbler Tour Rule: Stay on the designated path! No wandering off to follow the bird song. (NOTE: These warblers build their nests in the sandy soil under the Jack Pine trees. There’s a $10,000 fine for disturbing a nest.) Handheld cameras were allowed – no flash, no tripod. I opted to take the lighter 5D Mark IV and my fast 300mm 2.8 L lens. The morning was rainy, dark, cold and windy.

What Was I Thinking?

Before we got there, I reasoned (wrongly) that I needed to concentrate on tracking fast moving birds and, with no tripod, I would not have time to fumble with Manual (M) mode.  Impusively, I set the camera to Program (P) mode. (NOTE: In this mode, the camera is basically on customizable autopilot. After quick and careful algorithmic considerations, it will automatically set the aperture and shutter—but also allow the photographer to take back some on-the-fly exposure control using “program shift”.)

Frustrating Moments

Bird song in the air brought excitement and anticipation. In hushed tones, birders around me were pointing their fingers and lifting their cameras. I became caught up in trying to follow their directions with both eyes and then (hand holding the tripod collar to keep the camera and lens steady) relocating that position with my 300mm lens.

NOTE: It is not uncommon for me to spend many frustrating moments trying to re-find a fast moving warbler that I saw with two eyes, but lost once I peered through the lens. I must direct the lens and quickly re-locate that spot while looking through the much narrower field of view of the lens, all in a highly charged instant. If the warbler is bouncing in and out of the viewfinder, and then gets lost in densely packed undergrowth, there is no choice but to lift my eye off of the viewfinder, search with two eyes until I am able to catch sight of it again and then redirect the lens. This is more easily done with a tripod and Gimbal tripod head.

The Kirtland’s Warbler finally did come out from behind the foliage…the lens locked focus and I got in 5 quick shots before he was gone. I looked at the LCD screen and was aghast at the exposure settings the camera chose. I quickly switched the camera to Manual mode (M) so I could better control the shutter speed.

Autopilot Algorithms

Apparently Canon cameras set to Program (P) mode will not necessarily incorporate (into the autopilot algorithm) the rule about how the shutter speed on a hand held camera should be set at least to the equivalent focal length of the lens. In this case, it appeared to “reason” exactly the opposite.  After reviewing the paltry selection of exposure settings that might work on a dark damp day, the camera’s logic favored close to baseline ISO and consequently, sacrificed a fast shutter and tight aperture in the process.

So….Canon cameras’ complex autopilot algorithmic logic did not match my intentions or expectations about basic camera shake avoidance rules. Perhaps Canon camera designers, mathematicians and engineers just assume that they need not worry about associating auto pilot with camera shake on high-end DSLR cameras. They reason that an advanced user will no doubt take the easy way out, forego automation, and just directly choose the exposure settings that she knows will work.

Lesson Learned

Lesson learned… When a specific (fast) camera shutter speed is critical to the shot….don’t use Program (P) Mode, especially on a windy day.  DUH!  I did not see another Kirtland’s Warbler for the rest of the tour.

NOTE: This experience was an effort to get out of my comfort zone. I’m spoiled here in my private bird space even though we saw very few migrating warblers this Spring. I missed the convenience being able to direct the camera from the vantage of a tripod and Gimbal tripod head within the comfort of my own home.

Bottom line: As a bird photographer, I’m not going to be continually challenged and rewarded with anticipatory delight unless I get myself and my gear out there. So I will go and try to let experience be my guide.

A Bird Action Fantasy

During one of my early morning walk/stair climbing regimens, I saw and heard a little bird I could not ID. I hurried home to pack up the camera rig and transport it down the dune stairs. It took only a minute to set it up on one of the lower decks near the water.

This was an impromptu effort where stealth was sacrificed for speed. It was probably too much to hope that when I returned with my gear, the mystery bird would still be there. Down there on the dune, I was alone. Not even the common birds made an appearance, . So as not to completely waste the time, I played with the camera’s light meter settings, focusing on dead sumac leaves and experimenting with the graduated neutral density filter to counter the overflow of harsh background light coming off the sky and Lake Michigan.

Still no birds. I imagined what I would do if a bird suddenly appeared and I had to capture well balanced images at midday with the lens facing the water. A dry practice run, if you will… setting up possible failure scenarios and intentionally mitigating the impact of harsh mid day light and fast moving birds. In my mind, I created a high tech, interactive bird action fantasy that ended with a detailed mental image of a highly desirable photo shoot outcome. A valuable work out…..the time just flew by.

After a couple hours, I dragged all my gear back up the steps and set up at home in the library. Two little Yellow Rumped Warblers were bouncing about, unafraid and not so far from the camera. I decided continue my experiments with light in a much different setting.  I took off the flash extender on my  Canon 600 EX-RT flash.

Canon 600 EX RT Flash without Extender

Flash Extenders are intended to redirect the trajectory of the light output (more narrow and consequently brighter) to better match the angle of view of long lenses. In many cases, it provides the light to expose detail to shadow areas and catchlights to dark eyes. If I get it right, the color quality is enhanced, especially in a natural forest environment so common to a lot of birds in my area.

The Canon 600 EX RT flash has better than average light focusing capability and does a fine job calculating lens-to-subject distance. When the flash senses a long lens on the camera, it focuses its beam of light so a higher percentage of that light covers the len’s angle of view–up to 200mm. (NOTE: Without a flash extender, the 200mm flash beam can not match the reach and angle of view of the 500mm with 1.4 extender (700mm lens equivalency)).

If the subject is close, the flash output with extender attached can look like a spotlight with a circle of darkness at the perimeters. Take the fresnel lens off  (MagMod or Better Beamer Flash Modifier System) and the flash will no longer direct the blast in a lighthouse beam sort of way.

Know How to Use Light In Bird Photography

These small warblers were in close proximity-(within 13′-15′) to the camera. I did not need the tight, concentrated beam that a fresnel extender would provide. Proximity of flash to subject matters. So does giving some thought to ISO levels,  E-TTL II evaluative metering and flash compensation (FEC). Luckily, the two warblers stuck around and let me experiment.

Photographing a Black and White Warbler

It’s always an exciting challenge to follow a fast moving target with the lens. Like most warblers, this little guy was busily on the move. Even though the Gimbal head performed flawlessly, I had trouble tracking him.

In the image below, the warbler was quickly making his way out of the frame. He was heading up… in the direction of his gaze..and moving so fast toward his probable exit point that I could not keep up with the lens. As I pressed the shutter, I knew the image would be tightly cropped and consequently create a sense that there was no place for the bird to go. No clipped body parts, thankfully, but still inadequate space for the top of the frame, and no room to creatively crop.

Compositional Challenges

My camera is often set at one shot auto focus simply because little birds far away tend to conceal themselves behind brush and in hidey holes. If I need to tunnel into these places with the lens, having a single autofocus point with which to direct the lens and lock focus is helpful. Plus, the flash is more likely to be able to keep up in single shot mode.

Focusing challenges change dramatically If the bird is out in the open. For this shoot, it was more advantageous to track the warbler with a small cluster of autofocus points in Al Servo mode.

NOTE: There’s a lot more on your focusing plate than just keeping up with a tiny, fast, zigzagging bird…ie focus limiter, back button focusing, image stabilizer, bursting speed, continual refocusing and shooting, enough megapixels for zooming.

Artful Compositions

Most birds are all curves. Lots of curves can make for an elegant and artful composition. They add energy, movement, and balance to the photo. If you crop too abruptly close to the edge of a frame, you can mess up the composition.

When the frame of an image is inadequate, photographers often try to creatively zoom and cut. A “cut off” is a deliberate attempt in post processing to include only a portion of the shot to create a compelling image. You zoom in and fill the frame artistically (or as tight as you like) and leave the rest to the viewer’s imagination.

I’ve tried this technique, and have to admit that the results do not appeal to me in my line of bird photography. Overall, I like the visual flow of a complete image that includes the context… and consistently try to “back off” a bit more in my zooming. Unfortunately, giving the image plenty of room in the frame is often not an option.

Photographing Black Throated Blue Warblers

A pair of Black Throated Blue Warblers arrived together at the fountain this Fall just before we shut it down for the winter. The male hopped around on the stones near the base of the streaming water, making for a colorful image. The female alighted on the nearby perches near the fountain. I was at the right place at the right time with the right equipment. Minutes later, this pair disappeared.

Sexual Dimorphism

The male and female Black Throated Blue Warblers have very different coloration- so much so that they do not appear to be the same species. The male sports lustrous blue plumage atop his head and on his back and tail feathers. A black face mask extends down his throat to meet a bright white underbelly. He keeps this striking plumage year round. The female has none of the prominent black or blue colors of her mate. Her plumage is a soft olive brown contrasting with wisps of yellow on the breast. If you look closely at the contour of the pale stripes above the female’s eyes, you can see an outline of the male’s facial pattern. Both the male and female have small white spots on the edge of their folded wings.

NOTE: Any time you see blue feathers on a bird, it’s a trick of light. If you are interested in reading more about blue colors in nature, I recommend this article: Why Most Animals are Not True Blue by conservation biologist, Steven D. Faccio. It can be found at this LINK.

Lenses v Digiscopes

The birding list-serve that I subscribe to recently reported a Barrow’s Golden Eye Duck associating with the more frequently seen Common Goldeneye flocks out on Lake Michigan. This news brought out a half dozen birders –all peering through their long spotting scopes, eagerly searching for this unusual bird.

Most of the birders I saw had digiscopes…a manually focused digital spotting scope paired with a dSLR camera and secured on the scope by a mounting bracket near the scope’s eye piece. (Some high quality digiscope-cameras have auto exposure and autofocus capabilities.) Along with their scopes, these birders packed sturdy tripods and tripod heads for optimal image steadiness and smooth maneuverability. They also had high powered long range binoculars hanging at the ready around their necks. I could see no one in this party using a dSLR camera and long lens.

(NOTE: Some of these scopes reach the equivalent of a 1250-4000mm lens…a size that’s only a dream in the world of weighty, magnification challenged, and very expensive dSLR telephoto lenses.)

Different Priorities

Even though birders and bird photographers both tend to love birds, be abundantly patient and haul around similar equipment, they have different priorities when out in the field.  Birders with digiscopes are more interested in using their scopes to record distant images of birds and to use that image to document a sighting. Like bird photographers, they devote time, serious study and money to their endeavors in an effort to capture high quality images or videos of distant birds.

In terms of image quality, a good lens will outshine a digiscope any day- the closer the proximity, the better.  In terms of capturing birds at a distance, especially a distance not possible with a camera lens, a digiscope is the tool of choice.

Photographing a Tennessee Warbler

I still can not ID a Tennessee Warbler quickly. A dark line through the eyes accented with long white eyebrows are most often used as the determining factors. My bird books refer to this species as “dull”, most likely because nothing really stands out color or pattern wise on the plumage – especially compared to other warblers.

I don’t think so.

These warblers are so individually distinct! Different gradations of yellow, gray, black and olive green are entwined throughout the plumage. The first image shows an individual with delicately understated colors…olive gray feathers on the head streaming down into the plumage on his back. The second image captures a very different pose and package, with a burst of daffodil yellow on the breast. No doubt the flash made those flaxen colors pop. Different birds, both captured in the Autumn of 2017.

Creative Anticipation

So…. what to take in when photographing birds? Do I want a tack sharp close-up where the image is so crisp that I can almost touch the playful plumage patterns and textures and count the feathers? Or should I expand the boundaries and create a sense of space, take in more of the mood of the landscape, the intensity and hue of colors, and the expressive lines and curves?

Photographers can create meaning and tell a story through their work. However, in bird photography, it is not often possible to follow through on pre-visualization routines… to capture the image exactly as you imagine it.

Pre-Visualize or Crop

No doubt some artsy photographers might think that the only way to do photography right is to start with compositional building blocks, to thoughtfully pre visualize and then frame in-camera. Zooming and cropping afterwards, (or any post production process for that matter) would be “cheating”.

I tend to operate in the reverse. Given the realities of the fast and frantic world of bird photography, I’d say that I end up cropping at least 90% of my images… and possibly more.

The Power of Framing

The more I look at a digital image of a bird, the more I know what to do. The power of framing through post processing helps me be less sloppy, snip away at the discordant parts, break away from standard aspect ratios. I push and pull the Lightroom crop tool every which way… trying to determine what looks best and to get rid of distractions. Post production is just another set of tools I use to create the look I want.

Bottom Line:  The photographer should decide what looks best, whether it be fanciful or faithful to the scene and subject, and not let other elevated egos decide for her.

NOTE: Pre-visualizing is a more time consuming endeavor when photographing with a long lens. Most often, my binocular vision is not engaged while peering through my 500mm monster lens.  I try to avoid the disorientation that comes with overlapping fields of view that consist of one eye seeing a magnified limited field of vision and the other eye looking without magnification at a much wider field of view.

Photographing Nashville Warblers

Nashville Warblers have been our most common visitor during this Fall’s migration. Individuals don’t stay long and they are as skittish and unpredictable as most other warblers. I’m always very pleased when I get at least one good, unobstructed shot.

If a warbler pauses for a few seconds and I do get more than one shot, (assuming the flash keeps up with the shutter action) there is always bird movement within the sequence. Warblers don’t sit still, calmly, quietly, motionless. And that makes HDR bird photography impractical.

What HDR Does

Whenever I come across well done, realistic HDR photography on the web, it is most often a promotion for high-end housing or other real estate on the market. A High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo is the compilation of multiple exposures into one and works well with static subjects like fancy interior housing layouts.

The purpose of HDR photography is to capture a careful blend (usually AEB bracketed) of identical images, and then digitally combine them to create a single photo that has a wide dynamic range ..much wider than the camera’s sensor can capture with only one photo.

Why Use HDR?

Photographers practice HDR to enhance tonal richness (expand the dynamic range) of the image. The HDR algorithm incorporated in the camera (or post processing software) pulls multiple images together into one and thus captures more detail on both ends of the 0-256 tonal range spectrum.

Each image file is set up with slightly different exposure settings allowing the camera to create a different dynamic range for each. Most often, the photographer will set up the sequence of shots to use the same ISO, the same aperture, but different shutter speeds. They take the time to measure the shutter speed required for the darkest and the brightest parts of the scene and then add additional shutter stops at the high end and low end. Finally, they blend only those images that expand the tonal range spectrum, i.e. overall dynamic range.

Tone Mapping

At its best, the HDR process exposes different portions of the final image by different amounts. Called tone mapping, the software allows you to lighten shadows and darken highlights in specific regions. Some photographic artists prefer to use tone mapping to make the blended image look surreal and/or unnatural.

How to Know When to Use HDR

There is no point in considering HDR if the dynamic range of the scene does not exceed the sensor’s light intensity range. It’s easy to check.

Every dSLR camera maps the light intensity range of its sensor on its histogram, so a photographer can instantly determine the dynamic range. If the histogram is ‘clipped‘ at either edge of the scale, picture detail will be lost – either in the shadows (if it’s clipped on the left) or in the highlights (if it’s clipped on the right). If the histogram shows large peaks overflowing at both ends and a low dip in the center, the camera’s sensor can not handle the dynamic range of the subject.

HDR with Bird Photography

Certainly a living, breathing, highly active bird in his natural environment looks much better when the light is outstanding–   – when the direction, intensity, and overall quality brings out distinct contrast and eye popping detail.

With HDR, there must be no movement (no discernible heartbeat, no wind, no camera shake) within the sequence of fast continuous shots. In bird photography, there is almost always some evidence of movement between the shots, creating ghosting and alignment issues and making a successful image meld impossible.

Perhaps I should practice on a statue of a bird.

Photographing a Female Hooded Warbler

This female Hooded Warbler alighted on a branch near the camera for less than a minute. Right before dusk, she perched 3 or 4 feet above eye level on a Sassafras tree very near the camera. Instead of staying put, she took off like a shot…a yellow blur flying directly at the camera and then swooping up 10 feet or so to avoid crashing into the window. She must have decided that with me there, it was too risky to attempt a drink at the fountain.

There is very little to recommend this image file. The detail is good and the blurred background is OK. However, harsh shadows (created by the flash blast) outline the underside of the warbler’s profile and make the overall image look very unattractive. I was able to minimally correct the darkness of the shadowy outline with Lightroom’s Shadow slider. If only there had been some distance between the tree trunk and the branch on which she perched, the dark shadow outlining the bottom of the bird’s profile would not have been so noticeable.

(NOTE: The shadow so prevalent on this image is not the kind of shadow that would be highlighted in the camera’s clipping indicators. It is just a background shadow created by the flash and made a little less black by pushing Lightroom’s shadow slider all the way to the right.)

Photo Editing

I do not own Photoshop, but maybe I should. The thought makes me weary because I think of post processing as a hateful but necessary chore. Time consuming as Lightroom is, I can not master image editing by using it. I can only minimally fix issues with the shadow slider and adjustment brushes and make minor adjustments with cropping, exposure, contrast, clarity, and sharpening.

Photoshop (and the hundreds of fancy plug-ins designed to enhance this software) would  have helped improve this image. First and foremost, it would give me the tools to separate the subject (Bird Layer) from its tree (Background Layer) and then replace the background completely. There’s also image magic to be had with the Masking, Brushing, Adjusting, Cloning, Layering, Blending, Liquifying, and Transforming tools.

Keep it Simple; Keep it Real

Bottom line: Learning Photoshop is not something I want to do to. When I first go through a day’s shoot, I’m looking for promise and potential – something pleasing that will draw the eye. If I don’t see this, the image is just not worth the time and effort it takes to fix.

Traveling Along, Virtually

So far, warblers have been relatively scarce this Fall. While I wait, I wonder if the devastating hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean temporarily put the birds’ migratory schedules into a holding pattern.

Bird photographers marvel at the distances and travails involved in the seasonal movement phenomena that is bird migration, yet critical knowledge gaps remain in the how, why, when and where of this spectacle. I hope that one day I might spot and photograph a tiny, durable, battery powered transmitter attached to one of these champions of endurance…. a geolocating device intended to track an entire migration route. These trackers will plot the movements, behaviors and timelines of thousands of bird species on world wide maps. They will allow us to travel along with the birds, virtually.

Photographing a Black Throated Green Warbler

A colorful transient appeared in short order. This little Black Throated Green Warbler perched high in a Sassafras tree that was less than 10 feet away from the tripod and camera. The soft brown bokeh comes from another thicker, taller tree directly behind where the bird sits. Tilting the lens upward with the Gimbal tripod head, I estimate that the distance between the 500mm lens and the warbler was approximately 24-25 feet.

NOTE: Gimbal Tripod heads are smooth and steady swing mounts designed to fit atop tripods and maneuver long lenses easily and quickly. A Gimbal head will support heavy equipment and enable the photographer to easily move it around horizontally and vertically. This includes the weight of not only the camera and long lens, but also the lens hood, the flash and its fresnel extender, battery pack, flash bracket, telephoto extender and various straps.

Shooting with the Lens Tilted Upward

The plane of the camera’s sensor was not parallel to the subject when I took the shots above…in fact it was substantially below it. So why do these images look like the bird was situated at or slightly above eye level with the camera?  When looking up through a long lens, parts of the subject will be at varying distances from the camera’s sensor. Shouldn’t this cause the camera to record a distortion? This bird is so tiny, so possibly its whole body was recorded at the same magnification because there was very little distance between the bird’s head and feet.  (Of course, the aperture setting … depth of field … has an impact on the sharpness of the entire image, especially when the camera is not parallel to its subject.)

This doesn’t explain why the bird looks like it’s perched almost parallel to the camera. 

At Camera Level

The Black Throated Green Warbler eventually flew down to the fountain area and I was able to get a few shots of him. Comparing the images where camera’s sensor was not parallel to the subject (see above) to an image that was taken when the bird was situated about the same distance away but at camera level (see below) is one sure way to determine if there is distortion. It is definitely easier to see that the lens was angled dramatically in those first shots. The camera level shot is a much more pleasing perspective.