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The DSLR vs Advanced Point and Shoot thread (good one) got me to thinking. 

I see an awful lot of spectacular bird photos in various places online but most of them are either feeder/nest box shots (especially hummingbirds), perched birds or large birds out in their natural habitat.  You know, I see a lot of blue herons/hawks/eagles in flight but not songbirds in flight.  Why?  Is it a decision that the small birds (chickadees, finches, sparrows, etc.) aren't interesting enough or do you gravitate to taking photos of larger birds because it's easier to do it (they move slower, you don't have to get as close, you don't need an expensive zoom lens, etc.)? 

I had a slightly similar discussion once with a long time photographer who turns his nose up at bird/wildlife photography in favor of people and landscape photography. He also sniffed at anyone taking, for example, 15 shots and keeping two. I thought it was his 30 plus year film (vs digital) history.  I wondered if I started taking photos when there were no digital cameras would I think the same way, that is, preferring photography where I had more control over the subject.  Because birds move around so much, I use burst.  Of course I'm going to discard more than I keep.  Isn't that the beauty of digital?  I'd be in the poorhouse or be a lot more choosey of the type photos I took, if I could only use film.  So my second question is, you long time bird photographers who used film for most of your life, how hard was it to make the mindset transition to digital?  Before digital, were you limited in the types of bird photos you'd even attempt?  Do you think it's amateurish to take more photos than you keep? 

I also told him, you just take photos of people because you can control the photo.  You light them, you pose them, you decide the background.  If you really liked taking photos of people why aren't there any photo journalism type shots in your collection?  Even the ones that look like candid shots, aren't.  You told the people to do something a certain way, maybe added some props and then snapped the shot to make it look candid.  The same is true with landscape type photos.  You prefer them because you set up your tripod when the sun is in the right position, at the angle you want and if you have to, you might even move something in the line of sight before you take the shot.   These people posing photographers would wet their pants if they had 3 seconds to photograph a small fidgety bird in it's natural habitat because they have no control over their subject, the external lighting in the time it takes to get the shot off and the background.  Third question:  Does it make it a less valued type of photography in the photography world if you do composition on your computer?  In other words, is getting the shot off unblurred and quickly the most important aspects of bird photography knowing composition can be done later on the computer?  

I'm guessing some of you belong to camera clubs that include all kinds of photographers.  I condider myself to be a beginner but I find it odd that a posed portrait of a human is more highly thought of by photographers than a portrait of a bird (or a dog or a squirrel, for example).  Why is a perched bird close-up more boring than a human portrait close up?  Is it true or is it prejudice in the photography world because more people make money from photographing people?

If you answer these questions, I'd like to know if you started taking bird photos when film was primarily used or if you didn't get into bird photography until after there were digital cameras.  I'd also like to know if you were a birder who then started to take bird photos or if you were a photography buff who eventually found out you like to photograph birds.

I like taking photographs of birds because I really like birds all kinds from the smallest to the largest. Back in New Zealand I had a Large aviary in which I used to breed birds soft bills to hook bills  (finches to parrots, parakeets). I have found birds to be fascinating from the time I was a small boy over 50 years now.

I would really like to get out and about with my camera but due to my wife's health that is not possible for me.

So I have to make do with what I can get around home.

Oh just in case you are wondering a lot of humming bird photographers spike flowers with sugar water as they usually set up a number of strobe lights to get there shots.

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

I just started birding and taking pictures of birds.  It started when I recently began hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in an effort to finally start enjoying one of the great advantages of living in the Bay Area.  I started with a point and shoot with a good zoom and then decided to buy a DSLR, which I'm still very much learning.  I am finding the getting good pictures of small birds in their actual habitat is exceedingly difficult, since they are often obscured, are very fast, and move about almost constantly.  The busy foreground and background causes lots of focus issues (though much of that is surely do to my inexperience), as the camera is unclear what it is supposed to focus on, the bird, the branches, the leaves, etc.  Getting a songbird in flight seems almost hopeless to me, as the flights tend to be short and they are often through thick cover.  I look at the feeder etc. photos and I'm often envious since it takes dozens of shots while hiking to get one halfway decent shot of a small songbird in the forest.  (The feeder shots don't exactly take themselves either, of course.)

As I did not take many pictures of birds before digital, I cannot comment on those questions.  But I need all the help I can get with the newer digital features and see no reason to ignore progress.

LauraC

             I don’t even try for a song bird in flight, why? There too fast for me if up close and too small for a long shot, also a AF lens will not always focus with out some contrast and that’s hard to get on a small in flight bird.  Number two. I did not start birds until digital, not that the chance was not there, I just had no interest in them until now. In fact I just started doing birds in May. I started out to get a Deer photo and wile I was waiting all these birds showed up so I took the pic’s. as for transition to digital I did not like it at first, but now I love it although I still feel I had more control over the film. Amateurish to take more photos than you keep?  Not with digital IMHO. Number 3. I’m not good at composition. I, like your pro friend, started doing people and did it as a pro for some years, so I still like the portrait stile photos even for birds. When time allows I like to compose in the camera although the first shot is usually centered instead of using the rule of thirds, so I at lest have one shot, I don’t compose on the computer, I don’t have a good enough handle on that yet. 4 I don’t find one photo any more boring than another if there done nicely. I have never been good at Landscapes’ but I don’t do them much. I was a photographer that went to birds. I have no life list, for me it’s all about the photo and I’m still learning that too.

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Kurt

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Lifers: 134

Recent additions: Black-throated Green Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Great Horned Owl
Favorites: Osprey, American Kestrel, Reddish Egret

JAC6:

I just started birding and taking pictures of birds.  It started when I recently began hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in an effort to finally start enjoying one of the great advantages of living in the Bay Area.  I started with a point and shoot with a good zoom and then decided to buy a DSLR, which I'm still very much learning.  I am finding the getting good pictures of small birds in their actual habitat is exceedingly difficult, since they are often obscured, are very fast, and move about almost constantly.  The busy foreground and background causes lots of focus issues (though much of that is surely do to my inexperience), as the camera is unclear what it is supposed to focus on, the bird, the branches, the leaves, etc.  Getting a songbird in flight seems almost hopeless to me, as the flights tend to be short and they are often through thick cover.  I look at the feeder etc. photos and I'm often envious since it takes dozens of shots while hiking to get one halfway decent shot of a small songbird in the forest.  (The feeder shots don't exactly take themselves either, of course.)

As I did not take many pictures of birds before digital, I cannot comment on those questions.  But I need all the help I can get with the newer digital features and see no reason to ignore progress.

I can't get a songbird in flight, either, but I think I'm just not quick enough.  Also, from my balcony, I have watched birds go to a feeder which I cannot see and they approach that area differently.  Some drop down from high in a tree right to the feeder area (feeder is obscured from my view).  Some fly from high up in a tree, to a lower tree, case the feeder area and then fly to it.  Some approach from a far away tree by flying low to the ground and some actually land on the ground where I can see them and then walk to where the feeder is located.  The little birds don't give me a clue as to when they are ready to take off but the blue heron, which sits an awfully long time in one spot, pulls its neck down and in before it takes off to tip you off that he's going to move and then he flies slowly.  So, the tendency is to want to take that bird in flight because it's easier for me to do it.  I don't have to be fast and I can see the bird cues.  Seagulls are easy, but then they are a big bird, too.

 

Goose said:

 4. I didn't know bird portraits were boring!  I never understood portraits of people and why other people liked them so much. If you want to see a person, just go get a coffee or something. I guess that's why I started with nature photography; I want to show people things they have never seen before, either because they didn't care or they didn't look.

I think the prejudice has to do with more pros making a living off of people portraits and again, being more in control of the photograph.  It just amazes me that a portrait of a bride and groom, for example, is placed in higher regard that a portrait of Mr and Mrs Bluebird.    The photographer can say to the bride and groom, do this, do that, wear this, take off that, stand over here, stand over there, move the lighting around, etc,, and all we hope is that Mr and Mrs Bluebird, bug in beak, sticks around for more than a second so we can get the shot off.

 

 

Wow! What a series of questions. I think of any art form as a matter of control. But what is being controlled. I have been in the television production business for nearly fourty years. Sports has been my mainstay but I have done my share of studio work as well. I can tell you that sports directors and studio directors are totally different in their approach. There is even some animosity at times. Like the still examples given, it is a matter of individual style. Studio work is carefully blocked and scripted, like the portrait photographer. In fact most TV studios use robitic cameras these days for news work. Sports work is spontaneous like the wildlife photograher. Although the photographer may choose the wrong playing field and nobody shows up to play. The successful outdoor photog will do everything in his/her power to make sure there is some action. This includes preplacement of gear, chumming(baiting) the animals, and extensive blinds that may include hiding cameras in a nest or other area. Sometimes their techniques are not kind to the animals.

I started out in the late sixties shooting film. I shot a lot of monochrome. I could develope the basic Pan film myself and that made my decision simple. As my career got going I sort of dropped the photography and stuck to TV. When I shot color film in those days I shot positive or slide film. I was thrilled when I got my first Canon with metering in the viewfinder. A couple of years ago I picked up my old film camera and began to shoot again. My had the world changed! The film camera gets left at home now and I will buy a DSLR when I can afford the system I want. I have a couple of friends that are professional still photographers and they have embraced the digital transition. I too have forsook the film. Digital makes many things easier. Bracketing a shot with film meant I had nine shots per roll if I loaded it by hand and got 27 exposures per 24 roll. If I accepted 1 in 10 as a decent shot that meant I had less than one good shot per roll. Sooo, I was more careful in shot decisions. Even with my point and shoot I can take over 200 shots in an outing and have media left over. That would have been ten rolls of film if I decided to bracket or shoot multiple frames. My old Canon motorized film camera was so noisy it scared the heck of any animals nearby. I like being able to choose from a pile of shots.I have seen Spolrts Illustrated go through cases of film in one sporting event. They would only use a handful in their magazine.

But the studio guy likes to use what he shoots. He/she takes great pride in all shots being good shots. Time is money. In the film days this was very important. Most studio shooters used medium format cameras that took a two inch or bigger image. Some used view cameras that used 4x5 film. That 4x5 film was dollars per shot. But think of it. A contact print was a large 4x5 print. View cameras are still used by some studios. Some of them are 8x10 or bigger. Ansel Adams used this in the field. Every shot counted. There was no auto advance. There are also medium format digital cameras. They may cost five times what a very expensive DLSR costs. Your friend has his opinion. His work is probably his passion as well. I enjoy seeing nature photography. I get more thrill from that than any portrait shot. Well, except pictures of my grandkids. But then that is like shooting wild animlals sometimes.

I will continue to shoot what my eye sees and use that to remember the day. I will use that to help journal the day. I like the blurry shots that people submit. It says that somebody was outside, or sitting in their living room, having fun and wanting to improve their life a little bit. Shoot as much as you want. Then go back and look at them once in a while. I bet it makes you smile.

Tuggy  

 

 

 

    

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KATY, TEXAS

Hey Laura,

First, a little background:  I've been taking photography seriously since 1970.  That's when I got my first 35mm camera and a roll of Kodachrome.  Before that was a Polaroid Land Camera.  Remember THOSE?  Well...  OK, maybe not.  That WAS a long time ago.  Over the years I developed a collection of different 35mm cameras and a collection of different interests in photography, including birds.  I had my own very nice darkroom set up and LOVED the hours I spent there.  Finally went digital in 2004 with a Nikon D100 and an electronic darkroom in the form of Corel Photopaint (I never have liked Photoshop that much).  The primary emotion I felt about the change was shame.  Every time I sat down at the computer to do some editing, I could hear all my old film cameras taking to me from the closet, "Fine.  Sit there and edit.  See if WE care.  After all the years we gave you, shooting in the rain and the blowing sand, and NOW look...  What are we?  Chopped Liver???  Just go with your shiney new gadgets.  We'll see if they'll shoot for you when it's 17 degrees below zero!  Let's just see what happens when that little battery goes dead...  What THEN, Huh?"  I really felt like I had betrayed old friends for some bright new flash in the pan.  Drugs and therapy have helped, but I still feel a little guilty.   One of these days I may return (at least in part) to the photographic equivalent of vinyl records, but for now, much as I hate to admit it, the digital darkroom is just plain quicker and easier and less messy.  Sorry old friends, but it's true.

To answer your questions:

I love them all, but small birds are actually more interesting to me, I suppose because they are closer to me in my everyday environment.  I interact with them all the time in the backyard, but rarely have the chance to see a raptor at close range.  However, trying to get a good shot of a small bird in flight is harder than herding kittens!  The only hope for that is positioning yourself where they are most likely to fly, say to the nest or a feeder, and waiting with the camera pre-focused and the exposure set.  The only other way is just pure dumb luck.

Aside from my guilt at leaving trusted old friends on the shelf, my transition to digital was no problem.  It IS easier.  With film, you must have either one type of film with one ISO, or else numberous cameras each loaded with a different type/ISO.  With digital, it's all there in the camera...  just change a dial and Voila!  If you shoot on the RAW setting, then you have created something even better than a negative...  You have created a piece of film that hasn't even been developed...  one you can develop over and over again, ad nauseum...  In the chemical darkroom, you get one chance to develop a piece of film, then it's over.  You're stuck with what you did.  So you must decide if you want to go for finer grain, more contrast, greater shadow detail, or what...  Then you develop for that attribute and you're done.  That's what you have, forever and ever, amen.  With a digital RAW image, you have what amounts to an undeveloped piece of film that you can then digitally develop over and over again, bringing out the attributes you want, without being tied to a certain developing technique. 

Do I think it's amateurish to take more photos than you keep?  Certainly NOT!  The people who taught me to shoot said, "Film is cheap...  if you don't shoot, you have no chance to get a great shot.  If you get a couple of pictures you really like off a roll of film, you should be thrilled.  If you get one really GREAT shot off a roll of film, then you should be ECSTATIC!"  I took them at their word and have followed that principle.  It's worked well for me.  Personally, it's your film, your camera, your photo, and who cares what the sniffing portrait guy thinks, anyway? 

As to composition of the picture...  if you ever worked in a film/chemical darkroom, you'd know that EVERYone crops and composes in the darkroom, whether it's chemical or digital.  In the chemical darkroom, the photographer uses techniques like cropping, enlarging, dodging and burning with a whole host of home-made gadgets designed to allow more or less light to an area of the photo paper as the printing is done... then once the paper is in the developer, you can rub an area with your finger to bring more developing solution in contact with the paper where you want an image to come up darker or more quickly...  there are a thousand tricks to make the final image look the way you want.  Digital darkrooms like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photopaint have only transfered all those tricks to the computer...  It's not like those techniques never existed before!  What?  You think Ansel Adams never fiddled around with an image in the darkroom?

Boring is in the eye of the beholder.  A good shot is a good shot, whether it's a bird or a human or a tree.  I've seen boring photographs aplenty with a plethora of good subjects shot in a decidedly dull and unimaginative way.  The most important thing to develop in photography is not the negative...  it's your eye for a good shot.

Like every other amateur photographer, I have a collection of pictures on my little website...  Along with pictures of other things as well.  I don't labor under the deluded idea that National Geographic is going to come knocking at my door, but some of them are pretty good if I say so myself.  All the shots on this page are digital, and every one of them has been enlarged and cropped to within an inch of their lives!  Doesn't bother me one bit.  There's also some interesting video of nesting sites around the house you might find interesting.  Link is at the bottom of the page.

                  Constance

                  http://frankfortnews.smugmug.com/Birds

 

 

 

I'm really enjoying the replies to my post.  Thank you for taking the time to respond and to tell me your background and experiences.

I wish I had seen this thread earlier, it's a good read. I'm 58 and still have my Canon A1 film camera (collecting dust). I've been drawn to nature and have spent countless hours in the woods since I was five or six years old. I love birds, reptiles, ....pretty much anything that moves (deerflies are an exception). I have slides and glossies of birds I shot in the Everglades in the early 1980s, but over the years, other distractions took me away from nature photography. Christmas of 2007 my sister gave me her hand-me-down Canon EOS 20D. It completely reignited my interest in bird photography and I'm loving every minute of it. I don't have any qualms about cropping, editing, or standing on my head to get a shot. I'm only doing it for the fun of it any way. Most of my shots end up as computer wallpaper on somebody else's computer.

One aspect of nature photography that draws me in and hasn't really been discussed here (unless I missed it) is the primal urge to hunt. I'm a guy, and like most guys, I probably grunt and scratch as much as the average bear. Photographing posing humans or taking still shots of buildings doesn't do it for me. I like to hit moving targets. It's much more challenging to capture a frozen image of a flitting bundle of feathers that doesn't want anything to do with me than it is to say "Say cheese!". I have more in common with guys in full camo packing shotguns and chewing tobacco than I do with commercial photographers. The biggest difference between me and those guys is that nobody dies when I shoot.

Mark

mj3151:

One aspect of nature photography that draws me in and hasn't really been discussed here (unless I missed it) is the primal urge to hunt. I'm a guy, and like most guys, I probably grunt and scratch as much as the average bear. Photographing posing humans or taking still shots of buildings doesn't do it for me. I like to hit moving targets. It's much more challenging to capture a frozen image of a flitting bundle of feathers that doesn't want anything to do with me than it is to say "Say cheese!". I have more in common with guys in full camo packing shotguns and chewing tobacco than I do with commercial photographers. The biggest difference between me and those guys is that nobody dies when I shoot.

Mark

Mark this is something that I agree with and I have mentioned it before last summer, I used to hunt with a rifle and now i hunt with a camera. I totally agree with you

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

Mark and Kiwi,

Well said!  I grew up on a farm, so hunting was a given, although the rule was, if you shot it you had to eat it, so there was definately no playing around. While I don't dislike hunting, or hunters (within the rules of course), I am very happy to shoot with my camera, and have those memories to share. I have been fortunate enough to get my fiance involved in wildlife photography, and I must admit, the way you put it, Mark, is certainly apt. When we go, he is definately on the hunt - for something new, different, or to be able to recognize a call and find the bird. Thanks guys!

Susan

ya know, maybe that is why i like photography so much.. i use to hunt alot as a youth. Now i go through the same motions, and emotions while taking photographs.. get up early, before the sun, make sure the equipment is ready before i go to bed the night before...the rush when you spot  THE bird you were after, the tension as you stalk him, getting the best angle for the shot.. boom..you take the shot, look up, is the prey still available? hasn't moved, so you take another shot. the big difference is- when you have shot your prey and are really satisfied.!  the victim moves on about it's life. No messy cleanup, no dragging the body to the car, cooking.. etc.. and best of all? the prey survives for the next 100 people to experience the same rush you just had...kinda like catch and release fishing. but usually drier.

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http://whatbird.com/forums/photos/early_summers_birds/
IM: oldguyrich

birdseye:

kinda like catch and release fishing. but usually drier.

That's exactly right. A lot of people are what I would call social birders; they enjoy going out as a group with their binoculars. Not me. I like going out alone and experiencing the surroundings from the perspective of a solitary critter. The smaller the group of people, the less disturbance and the greater your odds of getting close enough to a bird to catch it with your camera. I think a lot of social birders who are purely interested in the birds and have no interest in photography may take issue with that observation because they think my desire to get closer to the bird for the purpose of photographing it will cause the bird more stress than peeking at it from a greater distance with binoculars would. I'm always as quiet as a mouse when I go out, and I've seen some pretty noisy groups of birders lumbering through the woods, talking, laughing, crunching and cracking twigs all along the way. There are lots of different ways to approach birding and everybody has their own style. My style is definitely a reflection of my personality and for me, the greatest rush comes from silently stalking and coming face to face with your subject, with not another living soul in sight, and getting at least one good clear shot off. You get another rush when you load the files on to the computer and realize you actually got a shot worth keeping, and another rush when you share the photos with somebody else. If it's a bird you've never seen before, it just magnifies the whole experience.