Bird photography can be a fun and rewarding pursuit, whether it’s capturing creative flight blurs or telling a story through environmental portraiture.
When photographing birds, it’s important to understand the basics of focus. Learn how to use the different focusing methods available on your camera. These tips will help you get sharp and clear images every time!
Focusing on the Eyes
Getting the eye of your bird in sharp focus is one of the most important parts of making a successful photo. It is the main element that captures the interest of viewers and evokes powerful emotion in them.
A well-focused photograph can have a huge impact on how the viewer interprets the image and whether or not they will want to purchase it. Having a sharply focused eye is critical in bird photography, especially for larger birds that are in flight, because without it the rest of the animal will often look out of place and distracting.
There are several different focusing methods that can be used in bird photography, but the most common method is to use the camera’s AF system to focus on the eyes of your subject. This is particularly useful for capturing images of birds in flight, because it allows you to track the eye as they move through the frame.
It is also worth remembering that birds tend to move quickly, so you may need to use the back button AF or Continuous AF modes to make sure you are ready for any movement they might cause. This is especially true for fast-moving subjects like eagles yanking fish out of the water.
As with most things in life, getting a good shot of a bird can be challenging, and it is not always easy to get the focus on the right spot. That is why many cameras come with a dedicated “Animal Detect Eye” autofocus mode that helps you get a crisp picture of your subject’s eyes when they are in focus.
While this mode is effective for focusing on smaller and slower moving animals, it can be difficult to use when you are trying to capture a fast-moving bird in flight. That is why it is best to practice with larger, more stationary birds, such as egrets and herons, before moving on to faster-moving ones.
Once you have a solid understanding of these techniques, you can start using them to take stunning bird photos in your own backyard. It’s not easy, but it is definitely possible!
Focusing on the Wings
Birds fly fast and change their trajectories frequently, making it challenging to keep them in focus. A few things can help you get a good shot.
First, you want to position the wings of the bird near your camera’s viewfinder. This helps you keep the bird in the frame, and it also ensures that you can easily track it as it changes direction.
Next, you need to make sure that your camera’s focusing system is set up correctly. Ideally, you’ll have the active AF sensor square on the bird’s head and it should be able to focus accurately at all times (especially when tracking rapidly).
Another important consideration is that your camera’s focusing system may be picking up on a difference in contrast between the outline of the bird’s head and the background. This will cause the depth of field to move behind or in front of the bird’s eyes, which can result in foreshortened beaks and/or wings that are too far back in the image.
When this happens, you’ll need to refocus manually. For most cameras, this is not too difficult as long as you’ve got an AF “assist” point over the subject that can be used to help you refocus.
However, if you don’t have one of these “assist” points available, or you are shooting in very dim light, this can be a real problem. In those situations, you can try enabling additional AF points on the subject or, for some cameras, even enable an extra pattern of points, like a “ring” or a cluster of points that’s centered in the center of the viewfinder.
For this reason, it’s always best to keep your camera’s focusing system as simple as possible when photographing birds in flight. Most cameras have an “Auto” AF setting that allows you to select a single AF point and then automatically focus on the selected subject.
If this doesn’t work, you can switch to one of the camera’s autofocus point patterns, like Group-Area AF on Nikon and Zone AF on Canon. This can make it easier to locate the AF point on your bird, but you’ll need to be careful not to select one that is too close to the bird or is too far away from it.
Focusing on the Tail
A bird’s tail is a great place to focus when photographing them in flight. As the bird flaps its wings, it’s easy to get a little motion blur when photographing them in flight (especially with large, fast-moving birds).
If you can’t stop that action by using a faster shutter speed, try panning the camera during the flight to create some motion blur. Alternatively, use the AF system’s manual-refocusing method to keep the bird in focus as it takes off or lands.
You can even bump the focus button manually to re-acquire a rough focus on the bird before you shoot it! This technique, popularized by Jim Neiger, is especially effective when you’re hand-holding the lens and want to avoid losing the bird in the viewfinder.
Depending on the bird’s size and movement, you may also want to consider backing away from your subject, both to reduce the size of the bird in the frame and to reduce the angular velocities of birds passing across the frame. This will ensure that you don’t cut off a bird’s feet or wings.
The important thing is to develop a smooth panning technique that you can use for each BIF photo you take. This involves fine adjustments in your arms and upper torso, as well as the muscles in your thighs and waist (as discussed above).
For many BIF photographers, the ability to smoothly pan the camera in any direction is essential to their success. You should always choose a head that allows for smooth panning, either in the up-and-down or left-to-right direction.
To capture the best photos of flying birds, you need a lens that is capable of delivering the greatest field of view at its longest focal length. This requires a lens that has a wide aperture, such as f/4 or f/2.8.
As with all focusing techniques, practice is the key to mastering this skill. Start with slow-flying birds, such as egrets and herons, and work your way up to capturing the excitement of birds in flight.
Whether you’re chasing or photographing birds in flight, be sure to take time out and enjoy every opportunity that comes your way. This will help you become a better bird photographer and give you the chance to create memorable photos of your favorite subjects.
Focusing on the Body
If you are photographing a bird on land, the best place to focus is usually on its body. This helps to show the contrast between the subject’s body and background, and can add some interest to your photos.
Depending on your bird’s location and the weather, you may also want to consider focusing on the chest or belly. This can be more challenging, but can also create a great composition and will help to show the contrast between the subject and the surrounding area.
Another good technique to use when focusing on the body is to move the camera around the subject before snapping a picture. This will allow the autofocus system to track the subject without focusing on other objects in the frame, so you can get sharper shots of your subject.
You can also try to capture the image with a slower shutter speed to convey motion. This can be especially effective when the bird is in flight, and will give your images more of a sense of movement and dynamism.
This is one of the most challenging aspects of bird photography, so you should spend time practicing before taking on the challenge of a live bird in flight. But once you have mastered the art of capturing birds in flight, it is well worth the effort!
When photographing birds in flight, it is important to have a steady hand and a good grasp of the camera. This can be difficult, especially when the bird is flying in an erratic path.
Many bird photographers use the “focus and recompose” technique when shooting in this manner. However, this method can cause exposure problems when you recompose the image with the focus point no longer on the subject. This can result in the measured light level from the camera’s metering system being more accurately read than it should be, and it can cause the subject to be under or overexposed.
To avoid these exposure issues, it is recommended that you use the focus-and-recompose method only when the light conditions are ideal and the subject is moving or resting in a static position. This is especially true when photographing white birds in sunlight.
