On the heels of April’s early-rising Shoot to Serve assignment comes another assignment that just might have you getting out early as well! 5 distinct categories of birds are mentioned in the Bible, and this month, our goal is to capture a quality photo of a bird from each of those five categories.
Shooting this assignment myself, I decided not to travel anywhere for starters. I was going to see what I could find right in my own backyard…
I learned a lot from this assignment! As expected, there are several challenges that come with photographing birds, requiring some fun creativity and lots of patience.
Finding birds
One amazing thing about birds is that they are just about anywhere! From blazing hot deserts to crowded city sidewalks to vast ocean waters to barren arctic wastelands . . . they’re everywhere!
When it came to finding birds in my own backyard, however, the first challenge I bumped into was making the time to wait for them, and being out at the right time of day. It is totally true that there are a whole lot more birds out in the morning and cooler parts of the day then there were in the hot, late afternoon! And I didn’t realize there were so many types of birds in my yard until I took a whole day just to look for them.
Getting close enough to the birds
The publisher wants high quality photos of birds that are more than just a speck in the sky. My setup is a 70-200mm lens with a 2x extender. This gives me a focal length of 400mm. On the 7Dii, that’s an equivalent focal length of 640mm. But even with this, I still never feel like I can get close enough! That’s the second challenge you will encounter, just as surely as I did. Birds seem to prefer staying away from people. 🙂
One way to deal with this is to bring the birds close to you. An example would be setting up close to bird feeders or bird houses. Just be sure to photograph the birds when they are perched on an object close by to keep the photos natural looking.
Another way to close the distance between you and your fluttery friend is to set up a blind of sorts in an area where you know the birds like to hang out. Once they are used to the blind, it is simple to walk inside, wait and snap away.
With these options in your back pocket, you don’t necessarily need a super-telephoto lens to get close enough to birds. You just need a little knowledge and a lot of creativity.
Capturing variety
The real heart of this assignment is not to photograph birds up close. It’s to capture variety! And that’s not something I did very well in the video. You’ll have to cut me some slack . . . it was the very first day I attempted to shoot this assignment!
As promised in the video, here are my favorite photos from that day:
Type 1: Eagles
The only bird I saw that day in this category was early in the morning, soon after dawn. And the one picture I got was a really bad one! I didn’t have my camera settings adjusted properly at that point. 🙂
Type 2: Chicken-like birds
This type of bird was not common in my back yard. And sadly, on my drive by the dam later in the day, I did not see any great blue heron like I was hoping. I’m glad I saw some Canada geese fly by early on in the day, though.
Again, I didn’t get a very good shot of them. I’ll have to keep working on these first two categories. Certainly not much variety/creativity here! 😀
Type 3: Sparrows
This category was the easiest! There were sparrow-like birds all over the place! This first shot of an actual sparrow is not the greatest because it was taken before the sun was high enough to reflect in the bird’s eye.
And do you notice something in common with the following three photos?
I was surprised at how often the fence showed up in my photos! Thankfully, it really isn’t that hard to get natural-looking backgrounds if you can just remember to exclude less natural-looking objects.
Type 4: Doves
As you know, I don’t have any photos to show for this category. 🙁 I did see one, though. And I hear them cooing every morning outside my bedroom window. I’ll have to bring my camera out another day.
Type 5: Ravens
I’m guessing this category is for the larger birds that fit between “Eagles” and “Sparrows”. I’m grateful Donald put blue jays in this category. We have plenty of them around here!
Because my first shot of the blue jay had the fence in the background, I stuck around a little longer to make sure I had a better photo. I loved the vibrant green with the bright blue feathers of this handsome fellow.
Another bird I saw that day was a rufous-sided towhee. I’m not sure if it is big enough to fit into this 5th category, so I’ll just have to ask in this assignment’s forum topic to make sure I submit it in the proper category!
Now It’s Your Turn!
I had a lot of fun with this assignment! I was amazed with the variety of birds I found around my house in just one day after simply opening my eyes to start looking for them.
I like the photos that I got, but I think you can do better! With the opportunity to submit 2 batches of photos from the 5 categories, and with almost the entire month of May to photograph for it, I can’t wait to see what kind of photos you all are able to come up with for this assignment, All Five “Feathers”! Be sure to read all the details thoroughly. There are a lot of them. Hope you enjoy beholding the fowls of the air! (Matthew 6:26)
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