A Better Day For Bird Photography

Black-capped Chickadee.

The last couple of times that I wrote about practicing my bird photography (I practice this time of year so I am ready to consistently capture acceptable photos while at the lake house in the summer), we had mostly overcast skies which resulted in a lot of poor photos. Even the few good photos I managed to capture were rather 'flat' because the light was quite flat. Yesterday, however, was a different story.

Yesterday was a very bright and sunny day. The sun was reflecting off of the snow creating even more light like an enormous reflector stretched out over the ground. These brighter conditions meant I could drop my ISO down in order to retain more detail while still keeping shutter speeds high.

This brighter environment also meant that I could stop down my lens into a much sharper zone providing me with sharper images. When you stop down a lens, the aperture gets smaller which cuts down on light getting into the sensor. When we have bright conditions this is easily possible but it can be difficult or impossible when it is overcast. Yesterday the light was awesome!

Female Downy Woodpecker.

There still was one problem... temperatures were in the single digits. I was perched in my usual position at our kitchen window but it was far too cold to entertain the thought of sitting there with the window open. I decided to clean the window and try to shoot through the glass...

I shot about 60 photos... they looked good on the little LCD display on the back of the camera but I know from experience that it is impossible to tell if an image is truly sharp on these small displays... I went to my computer and uploaded the photos. Immediately, I could tell I was shooting through a double glazed window. Bummer. Every image was ghosted with a double image... If I shot directly through the window at a 90 degree angle, the resulting photo wasn't too bad but it still was slightly hazy. The more of an angle I shot through that window, the greater the ghosted double image I captured and the haziness increased accordingly.

Shooting through that glass wouldn't work so I decided it was not an option no matter how cold it is outside.

I went back to the kitchen with two cameras in tow... I closed the kitchen doorway to the hallway where our thermostat is located to keep the furnace from kicking on as I filled the kitchen with crisp winter air... then I opened the kitchen window and was blasted with Arctic frigid air. Now, sitting in my kitchen, I could see my own breath but I had a clear view of the birds outside.

Typical annoying, loud Blue Jay. Fortunately, this
guy didn't hang around long.

While the birds settled down after being startled by me opening the window, I set up new settings on my camera bodies. Within a few short minutes the birds were back and I shot another 65 images or so.

This second batch through an open window rather than through window glass was significantly sharper. The bright conditions also made for some nice, sharp, contrasty photos.

Even though I captured a lot of awesome photos, I was still having difficulty keeping my camera steady while using this long lens. I shot all of the photos on this page while hand-holding my camera and lens. The longer I shot, the less steady I was while shooting. I was quickly getting tired and my hands were getting shakier by the minute.

For a lens with a field of view equivalent focal length of 600mm, this Olympus lens is relatively 'small'. That being said, it is still heavy and a significant size. At 600mm, just moving the camera a hair will cause a bird to instantly jerk out of the frame. Fatigued, shaky hands do not work on a lens this long!

The next time I practice, I'm going to try using my tripod. First, I'm going to try using my gimbal head then I will try my ball head. We'll see which is more effective on the go in these types of situations.

This kitchen window is small... very small. The open section is only about 18"x18" so that means in order to shoot through the window at an angle, I need to move the camera left, right, up and down significantly. I may need to try a monopod with a ball head so I may need to buy one if the tripod is too stationary.

Considering how many bird photos I have posted here lately, it may seem like I am interested in birds... I'm not really all that interested in birds. Truthfully, I find them annoying and painful on the ears. I'm more interested in mastering the difficult art of bird photography. Unlike last year, our yard seems to have a healthy population of sparrows, chickadees, finches of different varieties, siskins, blue jays, and woodpeckers right now.

Here are some pretty decent photos of birds playing in the snow on a sunny day....

American Goldfinch...

"I told you to hold onto that sunflower seed... uggg... you never listen to me..."

I think this is a male Purple Finch... looking more red than
purple in winter...

And, I believe this one would be a female Purple Finch (no purple at all)...
or it is another type of finch... Cassins or House...

I named this guy "Joey" the weasel... he's the jittery snitch of this flock of songbirds...
"Yeah... yeah... he's the one who stole the birdseed and stahted the fight...
yeah... that guy ov'a thei-ah with the big nose and blue pope hat..."