Use These Settings for Your Bird Photography – PT 2

^{Note: This tip comes from Digital Photography School’s article - Bird Photography Settings: The Ultimate Guide}

Tip #1 - Use an aperture that’s wide (but not too wide)

You want the aperture to be wide enough to blur out disturbing background elements but closed enough to keep the bird's essential areas sharply focused.

This setting will vary depending on the focal length of the lens you are using, but generally, you will want your f/stop to be somewhere between f/4 and f/8.

Tip #2 - Use the back-button focus to capture tack-sharp photos.

Most cameras today allow the photographer to set up a separate button on the back to focus the lens. In this scenario, the shutter release button only releases the shutter and is exempt from the focusing mechanism.

This has two main benefits. First, you can focus and fire at the same time. Second, there is less chance of the photographer jamming on the shutter release button in excitement, thus creating blur from the camera shake.

Tip #3 - Use continuous shooting to nail the action photos.

Birds are full of life, so there are plenty of opportunities for action shots: Birds flying through the air, birds diving into the water, birds capturing fish.

And that’s where continuous shooting comes in handy.

These days, pretty much every camera has a continuous shooting mode. This allows you to fire off a burst of photos, generally between 5 frames per second and 30 frames per second, and capture split-second moments.

So, switch to continuous shooting whenever you go out to photograph birds. When the action heats up, start shooting bursts rather than single shots.

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!)