Best Camera Settings for Bird Photography
The Complete Guide to Wildlife Photography - Part 2
This weekend, I get to have the incredible opportunity of photographing birds alongside two amazing photographers - Bobby Stormer and Ivey Kennedy down in Cape May, NJ. It is a dream come true to work alongside some amazing people I’ve looked up to for a while in the wildlife industry! While this is a super exciting opportunity for me, I also see it as a chance to share some of my photography knowledge with you, wherever you are on your journey.
In Central PA, there aren’t a ton of opportunities to see big game wildlife, but there are a ton of opportunities to see little wildlife. Just the other day, I saw wood ducks for the first time in PA! It was a neat opportunity for me, and added a new lifer to my list!
So today, in prep for my awesome weekend with some incredible bird and wildlife photographers, we’re breaking down the settings you’ll need to photograph birds and birds in flight, no matter where you’re taking pictures.
Autofocus
Personally, no matter what I am shooting, I always use a single-point autofocus setting in my camera. With the caveat that I have a special button with tracking already programmed into my camera. This allows me to select where my camera focuses, but also lets the camera do the hard work of tracking a moving subject at a moment’s notice. Because I prefer to have complete control over where my camera is focusing, this system works for me. Some people prefer to keep tracking on, but I’ve found I prefer to turn it on and off when I want it. If you want to keep tracking on, you can also switch to zone tracking, which lets you choose how much of your screen your camera uses for focus. For this setting, I’d recommend choosing a smaller focus area that you can move around. This gives you a little bit more control than just letting the camera read the entire scene and pick what it thinks you want to focus on.
Shutter Speed
As with any moving object, you’re going to want a fast shutter speed. Anything over 1/500th of a second is going to be your friend. Typically, if it is a fast or frantic-moving bird, I want my shutter speed to be around 1/2000th of a second or higher. With a fast shutter speed, you'll need a higher ISO as well. These two things go hand in hand, and we’ll cover them in the next section.
If you are going for a more artistic photograph, for example, one with a slow shutter speed or motion blur, your shutter speed will need to be lower. If you are tracking a bird in the sky or on the water and want motion blur, make sure your shutter speed is around 1/60th or lower, such as 1/30th or 1/15th.
ISO
For wildlife photography, the best ISO is obviously the lowest that you can with the amount of light you’re given. However, even on a bright, sunny day, I find myself starting at around ISO 400 to achieve a fast shutter speed and a narrow aperture. ISO varies with the light you’re shooting in and the type of lens you’re using. Most digital mirrorless cameras can easily shoot up to 3200 ISO with minimal grain in post-processing. So don’t be afraid to lift it if you need extra light.
* As a tip, it’s better to raise your ISO in the moment and denoise grain out later than it is to try to recover an underexposed image. You retain more detail in a high-ISO grainy image than in an underexposed dark image.
Aperture
This will vary depending on the lens you have available to shoot with, but the same applies to ISO. The lower the better. The best wildlife lenses have apertures of f2.8 or f4. However, you can still achieve gorgeous images photographed at f8 or f11. The trick is that the longer the lens, the higher the compression. Which means your background will be blurred out anyway. There is beautiful compression with a 600mm f4 lens, but if you don’t have a ton of money to drop on expensive lenses, a good variable-aperture lens that reaches far will get the job done.
Atmosphere
The last thing I want you to consider when photographing birds is atmosphere. This is something that is almost never discussed in wildlife photography, but it is a vital part of it. Everyone wants the highest-reaching lens when photographing animals, but you have to remember one thing. The further a subject is away from you, the more atmosphere you are shooting through. By atmosphere, I mean fog, haze, heat waves, humidity, salt spray, etc. More reach doesn’t always mean a cleaner image if environmental factors are in the way between you and your subject.
So, heading out to photograph birds this weekend? Make sure you read this blog post before you go! Want to read part 1? Read it HERE! Good luck!
