Maximize Your Chances for Taking ‘Keepers’ With These Recommended Camera Settings!

^{Note: This tip was written by guest author Tobie Schalkwyk.}

^{If you’re interested in improving your bird photography skills, check out and download Photzy’s 10 Bird Photography Cheat Sheets}

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting on my porch in the late afternoon, sipping a red wine and pondering the good things in life.

To my right was my soul mate of 45 years, and to my left was my Nikon D600 with a birding lens (150-600mm) mounted. What more could I need?

We suddenly got interrupted by a bird flying low over our heads while making stress calls, which I had never heard before.

My wife and I immediately looked at each other with big frowns on our foreheads and then followed the bird until it perched in one of the trees about 50 feet away. 

I immediately knew this was a stranger. It was too far to identify by bare eye, so I grabbed the camera to have a look through the lens. ‘What! A grey-headed bush shrike!’, I whispered to my wife.

This bird is extremely rare in our area and is difficult to snap even in areas where it does occur in higher numbers. Its name is ‘ghost bird’ when translated directly from my home language, and for a good reason!

I only had a split-second to push my finger down on the shutter release button, before my subject disappeared into shrubs further away.

I could not wait to see this visitor on my camera’s LCD screen! As I looked at the screen, my heart sank into my shoes.

My camera was still on the settings used for my grandchild’s birthday party the day before, so the image was totally overexposed—not even my best post-processing efforts could save it!

A Case For Go-To Settings

I could not believe that I was caught with my pants down! I always preach about being ready for any shot at any time by maintaining my go-to settings!

My usual go-to settings on this day would have rendered a very decent image, suitable for perfect fine-tuning in post-processing.

For an in-house birthday party, the perfect go-to settings would be f/5.6, 50mm, 400/800 ISO, and a Speedlight mounted.

What are the properties of suitable go-to settings in bird photography?

• It should need minor adjustments in-camera to achieve ‘perfect’ exposure just before taking a shot.

• If there is no time to adjust in-camera (more often than not in bird photography), it should need minor adjustments in post-processing to achieve ‘perfect’ exposure.

• The shutter speed should minimize blur – at least 90% of the time.

Tip #1 - My ‘Perfect’ Go-To Settings For Birds

What are my personal go-to settings for bird photography and why?

• I chose the widest aperture (f/5.6 on my lens) so that I could pair it with a decent shutter speed and minimize my ISO needs. Of course, it favors a soft background. On faster lenses, you may want to keep this at about f/4.

• A shutter speed of 1/800s. This allows quite fast bird movement without blur – even in flight. It also complies with the reciprocal rule of photography, which is a minimum of 1/600 on my 150-600mm zoom lens.

• 800 ISO. This is a bit of a luxury on my camera, which handles high ISO settings quite well for the era it was manufactured.

Your Perfect Go-To Settings For Birds?

 Your perfect go-to settings will, of course, depend on your kit. If your camera does not handle ISO settings higher than 400 that well, you may bring down your shutter speed by one click and stay with 400 ISO. If your lens allows f/4, then bring down the ISO to 400 or even lower.

The Bottom Line

Tip #2 - Experiment and see what works best for you.

Remember, the bottom line is not what an image looks like on your LCD screen but rather what it looks like after post-processing!

So, your main aim should be to cater to Lightroom (or whatever post processor you’re using) and not to have a perfect image on camera!

I know there are ‘straight-out-of-camera’ (SOOC) bragsters out there, but just let them be! Don’t let them spoil your end results by letting you focus on in-camera results!

I hope that the perfect go-to settings for your camera/lens combo bring you many great keepsakes! 

Want more? If you want to learn more about bird photography, and capture beautiful shots of your own, we recommend downloading and printing out Photzy’s 10 Bird Photography Cheat Sheets (Special bonus available now!)