How to: take photos of yardbirds

[darren]

A broken leg and limited mobility has provided the oportunity for me to explore photography of yard birds while sitting in the relative comfort of my living room. I had actually been interested in doing it for a while, but until now I never seemed to be sitting around my living room very much.

My goal was to take fairly natural looking shots. I did not want the bird feeder to be visible and I wanted nice clean visually appealing backgrounds. Something like these shots:

Being an engineer, I planned it all out. My equipment for these shots is a Canon 20D and a Canon 100-400mm IS L lens. To get the best of the lens, I wanted to stay away from the extreme end of 400mm so I back it off to about 370 mm. The Canon 20D digital SLR has a crop factor of 1.6x compared to 35mm film, so that yields an effective focal length of about 600mm in 35mm film terms. Not too shabby, but nothing stellar for small yard birds. Even at 600mm you need to be pretty close to a tiny bird to get a decent photo.

I knew I would be shooting out of my living room, so I set up a feeder about 10' outside of one of the windows. That gives me enough working distance with the lens to be past it's minimum focus distance of 6' and close enough to get a small bird to be a decent size in the frame.

Here is the feeder outside the window:

I picked that window because the feeder would have a pine tree behind it. The green color of the pine tree would be a nice background color. The pine tree is on the left side of this photo:

The pine tree is about 18' behind the bird feeder, so it is far enough away that it will blur out nicely. If the tree were too close to the feeder then the tree would be in focus in the shot and it would be distracting. By keeping the background far enough away and focusing the camera on the closer bird feeder, you can get a nice clean, blurry, background that lets the subject pop out.

 

[darren]

Here is a shot of the bird feeder with the pine tree in the background:

The feeder is a simple tray on top of a pole that is equiped with a low tech home made squirrel guard. The old stick is screwed to the tray to provide a perch for the birds to land on before they go down to get some seeds. By shooting the birds when they are on the perch, you can get a "natural" looking shot that does not include the feeder. I also have a log sitting on the platform. I drilled some holes in the end of the log and fill them with suet. Again by getting a picture of the birds on top of the log yields a natural looking shot with the feeder not visible.

This is the view from inside the house looking out the living room window:

I have removed the screen from the window and open the window to shoot. Don't waste your time trying to shoot through glass or a screen. I made a "custom blind" sized to fit the open window by cutting down a couple of scrap pieces of foam core backer board that I use for framing prints. The pieces are just taped together and it provides a hole for the lens to stick out of. I open the window, place the blind in the opening, and then shut the window on to the blind to hold it in place. The blind also provides the benefit of blocking some of the cold air when it is cold out.

So here is the blind in the window, the camera on a tripod in place, and the view to the feeder with the pine tree in the background. If you look very closely you can see a bird is sitting on the branch on the feeder. Almost ready to start shooting...

Here is the camera and tripod setup with the lens at the opening of the blind:

I then close the window curtains and use clips to hold them shut around the lens:

Yes, that is a chip clip and a clothes pin. Don't give me any grief. And don't mention the crappy 40 year old tripod that I borrowed from my father. My good tripods are in Hawaii and I had to make do.

Here is my whole setup:

Talk about shooting in comfort! Sitting in a chair with the heat on. Heck, sometimes I even have a beer and put on some John Lee Hooker.

As I was taking the photos of this set up, a white breated nuthatch came to the feeder, so I had to take some shots. Here is one showing the classic pose of a nutchatch going down a tree (log in my case):

So that is it. Nothing too fancy, just some planning. I borrowed a flash unit and I started experimenting with it. I plan on using a off shoe cord and then cutting another hole in the foam core blind and mounting the flash off the the side of the lens. I'll see how it goes. It should help provide some fill flash and some better catch lights in the bird's eyes.

These shots were taken at f8 or f10 and with shutter speeds ranging from 1/200 - 1/500 sec. ISO 400 or 800. I put the camera in Aperture priority mode (how I shoot 90% of the time). I set the ISO to 400 and the aperture to f8 and see what the resulting shutter speed is. If the shutter speed is slower than 1/200 sec then I bump the ISO up to 800. If i can get away with it, I bump the aperture up to f10 to get more of the bird in focus. Again, since the background is so far away and I am shooting at an effective 600mm, I do not have to worry about the background being in focus even at f10.

There are certainly other ways to do it, but I figured I would document my set up. Hopefully it will be interesting or hopefully helpful to someone.

- darren

 

[darren]

Here are some more sample shots:

Black capped chickadee

Tuffted titmouse

Male northern cardinal

Carolina wren

Dark eyed junco

- darren

 

[el-bagr]

Outstanding.

 

[kmorgan]

Outstanding! Thanks so much for posting the pictures and the "How to".

Kevin

 

[Brambor]

great thread. Kudos! Yo da man!

 

[BorealChickadee]

Thanks Darren!
And sorry to hae missed your birthday, college visits that couldn't be avoided.

 

[Grumpy]

Great results from excellent planning and preparation.

Knowing that Darren is recuperating from an injured leg, in reading his "treatise" I couldn't help but think of an old 1950s or '60s era movie thriller titled "Rear Window," starring (I think) James Stewart.

G.

 

[w7xman]

This is very informative, and your technique as good as it gets. I've in the past remarked that I am eh on bird photography, but from your technique and write-up, it has all the challenges of macro which I love, and adds an extra fleeting element too you. I bet you could be entertained for hours with a challenge like this.

The shots are technically and artistically perfect, great sharpness and DOF. Great work, and thanks for sharing. Now I just need a big lens like that!

 

[dvbl]

Great results from excellent planning and preparation.

Knowing that Darren is recuperating from an injured leg, in reading his "treatise" I couldn't help but think of an old 1950s or '60s era movie thriller titled "Rear Window," starring (I think) James Stewart.

G.

Oh man! Grumpy, you beat me to it.

Rear Window

Darren, your co-star is Grace Kelly. That's a good thing.

 

[darren]

I'll have to admit that I am not a fan of J-J-J-J-J-J-Jimmy SHtewart, but I do like Hitchcock, so I'll have to rent it and check it out.

- d

 

[4000'er]

Nice photos Darren. I enjoyed the "behind the scenes" look on how you got the shots.
Did you bump up the contrast, I like the "pop"

Jim

 

[darren]

Did you bump up the contrast, I like the "pop"

Jim

No, I didn't change the contrast. The Canon 100-400 lens is one of their "L" lenses. That is their best line of lenses and that lens has very good contrast right out of the gate. Certainly more "pop" than the standard consumer EF line of lenes. I see a big difference between my good Canon lenses and my cheaper Canon lenses.

Thanks.

- darren