wild birds

by Jerry Liguori (Author and Bird Photographer)

 Equipment Advances:

Camera equipment has advanced in many ways in recent years, the biggest advancement has been in digital photography. Yes, film cameras can take beautiful photos, especially medium and large format landscapes and the like, but for overall image quality and usefulness regarding bird photography, particularly in-flight, digital equipment is far superior (see images on left). One of the most valuable features of digital photography is the ability to review images on-the-spot through the rear viewfinder. I remember having to wait at least 2 weeks to get a roll of slides back, only to be disappointed with the results. Nowadays, you can review your images instantly to get a feel for the exposure, contrast, sharpness, or composition. The ability to adjust tone, contrast, saturation, and sharpness on-the-spot as conditions change is another valuable option offered by the newer digital cameras. However, overdoing certain adjustments may result in a negative effect. High quality digital cameras also perform better in low light and at high ISO settings than film. Manufacturers try to make improvements each year regarding the precision of the auto-focus and other functions, and this is evident when comparing older model film or digital cameras to new models. Another advantage of digital images is that they are much easier to store and archive than are prints or slides. Some digital cameras offer video recording, and I'm sure most or all will in the future.

Just a note about shooting JPEG vs. RAW. The image size and resolution of JPEG (high quality setting) and RAW photos are the same (but the file size of a JPEG image is smaller). There are advantages to both settings, but the overall advantage of shooting JPEG is greater. This issue can be argued to death, as opinions differ, and alone is worthy of an entire article, which I don't have the energy or time for...but I have tested both settings and compared the results. On most cameras, there is an option to shoot both JPEG and RAW simultaneously, but there are drawbacks in doing so. I just don't prescribe to the theory of shooting RAW "just in case" because a strong enough case has not been made.

The 30 day blog challenge is over for those of us who live down under in Australia.  It's already 1 hour into the 1st July (yes I am so addicted to writing for you that I'm still up at 1.00 am.)

Thank you all so much for your interest and comments.  I really appreciate all of you who made the time to read my stories and give me your feedback.  I've had a wonderful experience sharing a little of what I have learned from these remarkable creatures with all of you.

We have so much more to learn and this can only be achieved if we share our stories and learn from examples.

I believe we all have an amazing bird story hidden in our memories. 

What is Your Bird Story?

It's time to tell all the rest of us.

The first time a bird sees a camera, he/she may feel a bit unsure of the big thing we place next to our eyes that also makes a clicking sound.  But in no time at all, they realise that the sound poses no danger to them. Once they become comfortable with the sound, they feel quite amused by our fondness for pointing this object towards them.

We use a Cannon S5 with a 1.5 teleconverter lens which is a reasonable sized equipment. To the bird it looks like we have added a big round black giant sized eye to our eye.

The birds have no idea what the camera really does for us, but that doesn't stop them from appreciating many things about it, in their classic style of observing our actions.

In order to understand birds, one has to pay attention with both ones ears and eyes.  In other words we need to hear  the sounds they are making while also following their actions. I call this 'Listening With Your Eyes'.

Birds love chattering and sharing the days news with each other.  Every bird species has its own language. The different species don't have much difficulty following each other.  The birds also have a range of soft almost inaudible 'mm', 'bb' type sounds and a lot of their communication is also non-verbal.

This is one of the first pictures I took of our birds back in 2001 with a film camera. (Any one remember those things that had to be handled carefully and in the dark?)

Here sitting on an old gum tree is Molly the mother magpie teaching juvis Maggie and Cindy to sing.  They had the most brilliant voices and loved singing at top volume.  This was during my early days of friendship with them. 

In today's post we will explore tips 4-7 of getting to know your wild birds.