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Photographing Birds When photographing birds, patience and perseverance are the keys to getting the right shot. The first step, for me, is finding a location that attracts the bird I am seeking. Once that is established, the stakeout begins. Invest time into watching their habits. When do they eat, fuss, bathe or fly. Being creatures of habit, once the pattern is understood, you can anticipate the action and be ready to hit the shutter. Be
quiet! You want to avoid disturbing their natural habitat. Put your
cell phone on vibrate. Walk gently and avoid sudden movements. I usually
have my equipment assembled before leaving the car. This keeps my
fiddling to a minimum and provides a comfortable and clean place,
out of the wind, to change lenses. If you are going to use food as
an attractor, stick to items the birds would find in the wild. A bait
shop is a good resource for tropical birds. Stay away from sugary
foods, bread and crackers. In Florida, I find some birds can be quite
the beggars!
Stopping flight in action requires very high shutter speeds of 1000 or more. I still use a monopods to keep me steady and to keep the lens from becoming too heavy. Lenses seems to gain weight over time! I do tend to use spot focusing in a servo action mode. If I let the camera decide what I'm shooting at, it may be sharp, but often, in a flock, it is not the bird I was after. Overcast days are friendlier to most birds. On clear days, early morning and late evening provide the magic lighting. Because light fluctuates, especially on those bright and beautiful but slightly overcast days, I like shooting in a semi automatic mode. The camera can respond to these subtle changes. Aperture preferred allows me to control my depth of field while monitoring my shutter speed. Some may choose to shoot in a Shutter Preferred mode or Time Value mode in order to keep your shutter safely at a very high speed. This is a personal preference. You can try and spot meter, but the birds are moving so fast, I find it better to just compensate for the tonal range of the bird. For white and brightly colored birds, I usually set my exposure compensation at a minus one (-1). For dark colored birds, I use a plus one (+1) compensation. I keep checking my histogram in case I need to adjust this compensation. You want to move that graph as far to the right as possible, without clipping. Always..... always shoot in RAW. I Set my white balance for a cloudy day as a starting point, most of the time. I might re balance later in the RAW file processor and for this, take at least one shot of something white or gray for each lighting change.
Check
out my Florida Photo Safari for some great
picture taking opportunities
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The birds in the background are out of focus. Fast lenses help you
create a shallow depth of field when using them at their wide open
f-stops.Fast lenses are desirable but heavy to carry. They allow you
to use lower and even less noisy, 100 and 200 ISO settings and still
give you the ability to use high shutter speeds. The faster lenses
give you more control when you are trying to separate a single bird
in a flock. 
