Photographing Small Birds

In this blog post, I am going to talk about how to photograph small birds and the various nuances that will help you create some beautiful images of these small subjects.

The Common Tailor Bird- Just 5 inches in length and 8gm in weight

Small to medium birds can be found almost everywhere. You can find them in the wild as well as in the city and even around your home. Small birds in contrast to the medium and large birds are hard to spot and almost always keep fidgeting or moving around a lot. This makes it difficult for the photographer to obtain well composed and sharp images.

The following points are tremendously important when trying your hand at photographing small birds.

§ Read Up On Your Subject

Knowing the behaviour and habits of the birds that you want to photograph will give you an advantage in locating and photographing them. When you get into the field, spend some time observing the birds. Subject knowledge doesn't have to be exclusively theoretical, you can pick up a lot of stuff just by observing your subject when out in the field. If you are photographing in a spot that you can return to frequently, observing the birds can help you identify patterns in their behaviour and movement. Good subject knowledge will undoubtedly help you create better images.

§ Understand Bird Calls

Try to listen, locate and identify bird calls. The calls can be very useful to locate and lure birds. Bird calls become all the more important when shooting in dense foliage which makes it difficult for the photographer to spot the small birds.

§ Take Cover

Different birds have different levels of shyness. Some birds will not allow you to get close, while some will. One cannot know this beforehand, hence it is best practice to approach them with caution. Small birds generally won't allow you to get very close to them. Try your best to take cover while shooting. Do not approach the bird directly by walking in a straight line. Try to zigzag around while taking cover as you approach the birds. Watch your feet and make sure there are no sudden noises. Make it a point to avoid wearing overly bright and contrasting clothing. If the bird suddenly gets very fidgety it means that you have gotten too close. If the bird is making eye contact with you, it is another sign that it may soon fly off.

§ Avoid Sudden Movements

Even if you are well camouflaged, any sudden movement from you will scare the bird away. Make sure are all your movements are slow and graceful. The most common movement that scares away a bird is when the photographer in his excitement tries to get his eye to the viewfinder too fast.

A Purlple Rumped Sunbird- One of the most shy guys out there

§ Camera Settings

1. Turn off the beep that occurs when the camera locks focus. The birds have a very keen sense of hearing and the beep might scare them off. For most DSLR’s, the beep can be turned off by going into the camera settings.

2. A lens of at least 400 – 500 mm focal length is required for photographing small birds and creating good sharp images. Using smaller lenses will not give you the required sharpness and you will have to get closer to the bird to get a better picture which will just scare it off.

3. Always keep the camera in aperture priority mode. Some people are tempted to shoot in shutter priority mode, but this will make things a lot more complicated.

4. Try to shoot at the lowest possible aperture value i.e. the aperture is wide open. Shooting at low aperture gives you a smooth bokeh background. If the background is cluttered, the image will become unappealing. Of course, you can indulge in creative habitat shots, but small birds are not easy to spot in a habitat shot or a cluttered background.

5. Higher shutter speeds are required when photographing small birds. The shutter speed needs to be high enough to overcome motion blurs and camera shakes. A general rule of thumb is to have a shutter speed equivalent to the focal length of your lens, however, I find a value which is double that of the focal length does the trick for me. Assuming that you are using a telephoto lens of 400 to 500mm and the bird is perched somewhere, anything between 1/500 to 1/1000 of a second might do the trick. If the bird is moving too much you will have to try values above 1/1500 of a second. When shooting in aperture priority, you can increase the shutter speed by increasing the ISO value.

6. Make it a point to always focus on the eye of the bird. Since you will be shooting at the lowest aperture value, the depth of field achieved will be at its smallest. To explain this better, you may find that the head of the bird is in focus while the tail is not as sharp. This happens due to the small depth of field. In such a case you may have to increase the aperture value by 2 or 3 stops.

7. Given how fidgety these small birds are, the camera’s autofocus settings are very important. The autofocus needs to be set to a continuous autofocus mode. This setting ensures that the camera continues to adjust focus and keeps the bird in focus as it moves and you track its movement through the viewfinder. For Nikon users, this setting is under the name: AF-C. For Canon users, this setting is under the name: AI Servo AF.

8. Ensure that the camera is set to continuous shooting mode. The no of frames per second varies according to the camera and of course its price.

9. Move away from traditional focusing methods (using the shutter release button to focus) to the back button focus technique.

10. Always support your camera well. Handheld photography of small birds with a long telephoto lens just does not work. Make sure to use appropriate support for the camera like a tripod, beanbag, etc.

Below are some more photographs of small birds that I have taken.

Feel free to contact me regarding any other queries via the Sumkh's Jungle Tales contact page. You can also check out the other blog posts in the Backyard Bird Photography Series here. If you like my work, please take a minute to share the website across your social media platforms.