Lost Photo

Sometimes...  hmmm...  actually, quite often...  I forget about some photos I shot and they get lost on one of my many hard drives full of photos.  Then, on nights like tonight when I find myself scrolling through photos on my drives, I come across a really nice photo.

Tonight I came across this photo, above, which I shot during the summer of 2012.  I shot this photo through our open kitchen window.  Our neighbors have a few bird feeders in their yard so we usually have birds feeding outside our windows facing our neighbor's home.  The problem is opening the window slowly enough and quietly enough so that I don't scare away the birds.

Capturing good photographs of birds is tough.  It is especially tough with smaller birds like this one.  Even larger birds such as swans, geese and ducks can be difficult to capture.  Smaller birds can be extremely difficult.

Getting close to these birds is almost impossible so that means you must arm yourself with a big, long lens. Big, long lenses are expensive so that is a limiting factor.  I happened to find a used 600mm lens around the time I shot this bird above.  Actually, I may have just received the lens before I shot this shot above!  It is quite possible this shot was one of my test shots with this new (for me) lens.

The next issue is keeping this big, long lens steady while you try to find the bird in your viewfinder. Then, you must ever so softly press the shutter release button trying to keep the camera as still as possible.  At these long distances, just the slightest movement will move the small bird out of the frame in a split second. So, steady hands and breath control are mandatory.  In this case, I probably braced my camera and lens against the window frame with the lens sticking out of the open window.

Then, you must find interesting light.  Have you ever tried to get a bird to move into the most interesting light?  I'm telling you...  it is tough.  They aren't all that cooperative!  This bird not only found some beautiful light, but he sat there perched on this branch long enough for me to fire off a few quick photos.

Another issue is trying to get a clear shot of your bird without branches cluttering your view.  Or, trying to keep background clutter to a minimum could be a problem.  Although I have one branch very close to the bird's head, this one shot is about as clear as you can get when shooting in an uncontrolled environment.  

All in all, I like this shot.  The light is really nice and the bird is focused fairly well (feather detail can be easily seen).  Not a bad shot!

I'm not really much of a "bird person" though so I rarely identify birds correctly.  This one, I think, is some sort of chickadee... a black-capped chickadee, maybe?