It was fun photographing birds with some fellow photographers the other week. I liked the pictures I took so I thought maybe I should blog about it.

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Countryside near Cheshire, Connecticut
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So, what do I write about. Maybe the story behind the photos?

“We bundled up and headed out into the bitter cold January outdoors! We stood next to the bird feeders for half an hour. Then we walked inside!”

Hmm.

Maybe I should focus on some basic birding tips instead:

• Use the most telephoto lens you have if you want to get close up pictures of birds.
• If you shoot through the window, pictures will not be as high quality as if you go outside where there’s nothing extra between you and the birds.
• A great place to find birds is next to bird feeders.

Umm.

I bet most people already know these things.

Let’s see.

Maybe 9 pro, super advanced birding photo tips:

1. If your fellow photographer has a 300mm lens on a APS-C sensor, don’t stand next to him with your 200mm lens on a full frame. You’re likely to get pretty jealous.

2. Make special effort to photograph not just “a bird”, but to really focus in on capturing the character or personality of a bird. You’ll be amazed that getting those dynamic shots is mostly by chance.

3. Depending on your preferred style of photography, it’s really important that you do or you don’t use a tripod.

4. As soon as you get your camera positioned perfectly on the exact spot where you think the birds will land, they’ll most likely go land somewhere else.

5. Even with the highest frames per second, you’ll probably miss the moment. (Maybe I should find a camera with more than 6 fps?)

6. Flying bird photos are impossible! All nice flying bird photos that exist in the universe must surly be Photoshopped!

7. If you want to photograph the skittish birds (cardinals, blue jays, flickers, etc.) you’ll need to be prepared to freeze in the outdoors for longer than 30min. Or maybe construct a blind?

8. If you want your epic winter bird photos to have increased gain in the shadow areas, make sure to forget all about overexposing in-camera to compensate for the brightness of the snow so you can brighten every single photo by a stop or two in post processing later on your computer.

9. After waiting and waiting and waiting for a bird to be in a good perching spot in a natural setting, don’t be too hard on yourself if you finally give in to snapping a photo of a bird at the feeder.

Oh dear.

Maybe I shouldn’t blog about this after all.

Hey, if any of you guys out there have any tips on birding photography, I’m all ears!

Honestly, though, it was fun.