One simple adjustment to drastically improve your bird photography

All photographers out there will agree with me that one of the most challenging aspects of bird photography is TIME! Recently I tested a theory out in the field and the results shocked me - one simple adjustment DRASTICALLY improved the quality of my bird images - keep reading to find out more!

The life of a bird photographer

Unlike landscape or even wildlife photographers (at times), bird photographers all too often find themselves in a “snatch and grab” situation. What I mean by this is that we frantically pick up our gear and fire away hundreds of frames in a few seconds as we are scared the bird will take flight - sound familiar?

I am not saying that we do not pay attention when framing our subject, of course we do by trying our best to have a clutter free scene with no branches protruding in front of the bird, a clear view of the eye to capture some catchlight etc, but very seldom do we pay attention to the background.

When I refer to the background, I am not talking about the basic rules of photography like a straight horizon and if possible preventing the horizon “cutting” through the bird, I am rather talking about the TONE of the background.

Tone

As you can expect a significant percentage of bird photos will have the sky as the background - this is simply because birds perch on trees, bushes etc.

Below is a typical example of such a photo - this is a European Roller - I chose this bird as it has blue feathers and worked great to test the new theory!

The Adjustment

The idea is to use a background that is natural toned - this really creates separation of the bird from the background and really makes the bird “pop”. I have to give a warning here, it is more difficult than the sky as a natural toned background has more texture/contrast so you might find that your camera shifts focus away from your bird - so some practice is required here as you do not want to miss the shot whilst trying to get your focus point back on the bird.

Same can be said for BIF (birds in flight), this will be even trickier than portraits of perched birds as you need to keep the focus point on the bird as you track it’s flight path, but I guess the saying “Practice Makes Perfect” is apt here.

Below image of the European Roller with a natural toned background really makes the bird “pop”

I challenge you to get out there and test this theory for yourself - I promise you will not be disappointed in the end result!

Till next time…