Tag: photography

Focus Stacking Macro Photography

October 21, 2022 / Nigel Bewley / 0 Comments

First, let me say how knocked-out and delighted I am to have my photograph of the sporangia (a posh word for fruiting bodies) of a slime mould take first place in the Up Close and Personal category of Ealing Wildlife Group’s photography 2022 competition. I’ve had a few emails/messages asking me how I achieved the photograph and I was asked about the process in person at the exhibition opening in Walpole Park, too.

Slime moulds are fascinating organisms. Their life-cycle includes a free-living single-celled stage, almost like an amoeba or a bacterium. When food is in short supply these single-celled organisms will congregate and start moving and behaving as a single body. They can detect food sources and can ‘shape shift’ and readily change the shape and function of the parts of their aggregation and can form stalks that support fruiting bodies – sporangia – that produce spores. The sporangia are usually very small, and can take some finding. I have a ‘slime mould farm’ in the garden that consists of a small pile of twigs and logs that I keep damp and in the shade, but even then ‘photogenic’ fruiting bodes seldom occur. I think this is because the single-celled organisms have plenty of food – microorganisms that live in dead and decaying plant matter so have not been triggered into aggregating. Slime moulds are not considered fungi by the way, but are classified within the group Protista.

Here comes the geeky stuff:

The sporangia in my photograph are very small and are around 1mm high, growing on a piece of decaying wood in my ‘slime mould farm’. After I found the slime mould I set up the equipment to photograph it. In order to achieve the magnification presented in the exhibition’s printed image (around 400 times life size) some specialist macro kit was required. I used a full-frame Canon R5 camera (that produces a high resolution file that can be readily enlarged) and a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens. Most macro lenses can achieve a magnification of x1 but the specialist lens I used can provide magnification of up to x5. It’s an entirely manual lens and can be very tricky to use. At x5 magnification with such a small subject the depth of focus is wafer thin, especially as I wanted to use a near wide open aperture of f/4. It’s true that I could have stopped down the lens to f/16 to increase the depth of focus to a useful amount but this would have required a long exposure time of several seconds and, more importantly, would have softened the image because of diffraction. Instead, I used a technique known as focus stacking.

In focus stacking the image is not reliant on a band of acceptable sharpness either side of the actual point of focus in a single photograph. Instead there are many individual points of focus through the depth of the subject resulting in critical sharpness throughout. A series of identical images are taken, each with a slightly different point of focus throughout the depth of the subject. The resulting images each include a ‘slice’ of sharp detail and a fair amount of unsharp, out of focus information. Software is then used to ‘stack’ all these slices of sharp detail into a single image of exceptional clarity and detail. I use Helicon Focus to achieve this. The software essentially looks for, and keeps, the sharp detail and throws away the unsharp, out of focus bits. The sharp detail is combined to form a single coherent image.

How are several identical images (apart from different points of focus) taken? The camera and lens was mounted on a Cognisys Stackshot automated macro rail and this was mounted on a rock-steady tripod. The macro rail is controlled by a small, basic micro computer that moves the camera and lens forward by a small amount during the photograph-taking process. This amount, the focus step distance, is critical to the process to guarantee a series of overlapping bands of sharpness throughout the depth of the subject. This step distance is calculated from a combination of sensor size, aperture and magnification. Look-up tables are available to avoid the maths!

Once the subject has been composed, framed (it was lit with two small LED panels) and exposure determined, the macro rail was set to the start point, via the controller. This is the focus point just before the nearest part of the subject. The end point is then set, also via the controller, to focus just beyond the furthest part of the subject. The focus step distance from the look-up table is entered into the controller and the ‘go’ button is pressed. The process starts with the controller sending the macro rail to the predetermined start point, firing the shutter and moving the camera the required focus step distance through to the end point. In this case the focus steps were 56 microns and there were around 60 separate photographs. This means a total travel of the camera and lens of around 3 millimetres.

I realise it all sounds very complicated and specialised. It took me a while to get to grips with the process but I think the results can be worthwhile. I like the slow, painstaking process that reveals subjects that are barely visible to the naked eye.

If you have read this far you are probably interested in this geeky stuff and in macro photography. If you would like a macro photography workshop/tutorial drop me a message. It will be 1:1 or 1:2 and not one of my usual much larger group sessions.

2021 5th Annual Photography Competition is now open!

September 15, 2021 / Caroline Farrow / 0 Comments

Mission:

An exhibition of photography to highlight the wonderful nature and wild spaces on our doorstep, celebrating the important relationships between people and local wildlife in Ealing.

“Wake me up before you go go” by Steve Morey Overall 1st place winner 2020

Judging criteria:

We want to explore what nature and wildlife means to you. Everyone sees their surroundings through a different lens, so we want to celebrate diverse personal journeys and individual relationships with nature.

This is not purely a technical photography exhibition; equally if not more important is the portrayal of images that will engage the public with the natural world at a local level in Ealing.

We will judge each photograph impartially, without bias and keeping the mission of the exhibition in mind.

The judging panel consists of a panel of wildlife and/or photography enthusiasts, including members of Ealing Wildlife Group, Ealing Council Park Rangers as well as amateur and professional photographers.

Candy-Coloured fly by Sennen Powell *2020* 2nd place Up Close and Personal

Submission guidelines:

All submissions must be your own work and by entering you declare you have the legal rights to that image.
Each entrant can submit up to three photographic images to be judged for competition
Submission of entries does not guarantee inclusion in the exhibition.
Entries will be eligible for a first, second and third award in 6 categories as well as placing in the overall winner category.
You should specify which category you are entering; judges will appraise each entry using the categories as judging criteria but may award your photo in another category if deemed fit.
High res original jpeg files to be submitted online at https://ealingwildlifegroup.com/2021-photo-competition/ by midnight on Wednesday 13th October 2021. Maximum size of images is 15MB.
Entries submitted after the deadline will not be eligible. Late entries cause extra admin and will NOT be accepted.
Excessive manipulation of images is not allowed and will be grounds for disqualifying a photograph.
- Types of editing that are not allowed:
  - Excessive vignettes.
  - Artificial borders.
  - Extreme changes to colour, saturation, light, or contrast.
  - Adding, moving or removing objects, animals or parts of animals, plants, people etc.
  - The removal of dirt, highlights, backscatter, bubbles, debris and similar.
  - Composites.
  - Painting the foreground/painting out the background
  - Anything that could be viewed as rendering the image a dishonest representation will be disqualified.
- Types of editing that are allowed:
  - Digital adjustments including tone and contrast, burning, dodging, cropping, sharpening, noise reduction, minor cleaning work (e.g. removal of sensor dust or scratches on transparencies/scans, removal of chromatic aberration),
  - HDR, stitched panoramas, focus stacking are permitted providing that they do not deceive the viewer or misrepresent the reality of nature, or what was originally captured by the camera.
No photos of staged wildlife shots, no captive animals, no dead creatures posed as if alive are allowed.
Photographs must have been taken within the Borough of Ealing within the last 5 years; the exact location is to be included in the submission details.
Please include your camera or phone details (e.g. ‘iPhone 10’ is fine, we have winners every year using phone cameras). List the settings if you wish so others who are interested in technical details can learn.
Your description of the photo is just as important as the photo itself and is part of the judging criteria so please fill it in with more than just a name of species or subject and location. We want to hear the story of the photo and perhaps what it means to you. Failure to provide a good description that will be displayed with your entry may lose you significant points in judging.
By submitting your photo to the competition you agree for EWG to share the image in promotional materials in future, with credit to you, the photographer.
Winners will be announced at the opening of the exhibition in Walpole Park this Autumn and a list of winners will be posted online afterwards on Facebook and our website. We cannot guarantee all winners will be informed individually afterwards, and certainly not before the opening of the exhibition.
Political agendas are not factored into any part of the judging criteria. Photos win on their own merits.

Good Luck everyone! 🍀😊

EWG’s 5th Annual Wildlife Photography Competition opening soon with brand new categories!

August 26, 2021 / Sean McCormack / 2 Comments

It’s that exciting time of year, for you to go back through your photo archives or get out hurriedly snapping more. Because our photo competition is about to open for entries very soon indeed, for the 5th year running!

And this year we are changing it up a little with some new categories alongside some old favourites. Here they are, so get thinking about what photos you enter. As usual 3 photos per person, they must be from within the Borough of Ealing and taken in the last 5 years. All levels and ages welcome, under 16s have their own category. And many previous winners have been taken on phones so you don’t need expensive gear to take part.

Urban Nature
Relationships with Nature
Up Close and Personal
Young Wildlife Explorers (Under 16’s)

And brand new this year…

5. Abstract Nature

6. Community Conservation

More info to come soon! Watch this space.

Using Telephoto Lenses

April 28, 2021 / Nigel Bewley / 0 Comments

Nigel using his telephoto lens in the New Forest

Telephoto lenses have long reaches and are great to ‘bring the subject closer’ to achieve detailed, frame-filling photographs. They can be tricky to use and there’s a huge range of lenses available. Here are six tips and hints to get the best out of your lenses.

Prime lenses – these are a fixed focal length and for wildlife 300mm to 500mm or longer work very well. They are fast (have wide apertures) and sharp (can resolve fine detail). They can also be very expensive and heavy.

Zoom lenses – these have the flexibility of getting a frame-filling shot or a wider composition that shows the subject in its habitat and can be particularly useful for when the subject moves nearer or further from the camera such as birds in flight. Typical zoom ranges are 70-200mm, 100-400mm and 150-600mm. Many have a variable aperture through their zoom range: my 100-400mm lens has an aperture of f4.5 at the 100mm end and f5.6 at the 400mm end. Some zooms have a constant aperture throughout their zoom range but these are more expensive than the more affordable variable aperture lenses. The image quality can be almost as good as a prime lens – you might be hard pushed to tell the difference and they are lighter.

Teleconverters – teleconverters or extenders go between the camera and the lens to multiply the focal length by, typically, 1.4x or 2x. Other magnifications are available but these are the most common. They don’t add much weight and are reasonably small and are an affordable way to make your lenses more flexible. They can work very well with prime lenses and with high quality zooms but the image can be degraded a little. I use a 1.4x with my 100-400mm zoom with some success but the 2x can make the image too soft. Not all lenses are compatible with them so check before you buy. The downside to using them is a loss of light and a slower auto focus. A 1.4x teleconverter reduces the light falling on the sensor by 1 stop and 2 stops with a 2x. If you are shooting at f5.6 that will become f8 with a 1.4x and f11 with a 2x. Beware that some cameras may not auto focus beyond f8.

Support the lens and camera – Some telephoto prime lenses can be hand-held and most zoom lenses are light enough to do without a tripod. When using a big, heavy lens, especially at lower shutter speeds, a tripod is all but essential. Choose a high-quality tripod that will easily cope with a heavy payload of camera and lens. A flimsy tripod will vibrate and wobble. You will also need a tripod head which sits on top of the three legs and into which the camera/lens is mounted. Gimbal heads are great as are ballheads. I have recently ‘converted’ from a gimbal to ballhead. When properly set up the camera/lens is balanced on the tripod and seems ‘weightless’ in use. Long telephoto lenses usually come with a foot mounted on a collar that fits around the lens. It is this that is mounted in the tripod head rather than the camera so as to protect the camera’s lens mount. Consider using a monopod. This can be easier and quicker to use than a tripod – it is lighter and usually does not have a dedicated head. I mount a camera/lens directly to a monopod.

Steady as you go – telephoto lenses amplify small camera movements as well as subject movement so it is essential to employ good technique when taking the picture. If hand-holding support the lens with your left hand and tuck your elbows against your body and ‘tighten up’. Take a deep breath and hold it – this stops your chest moving and helps keep the camera steady. Squeeze the shutter rather than stab at it. If using a tripod or monopod press the back of the camera against your face and drape your left arm over the lens to dampen any vibrations. Some tripod heads have a little hook on the underside. This can be used to hang your backpack to add more stability. I keep a small cloth bag which I fill with rocks, clods of earth or half-bricks etc. Hanging a weight in this way really helps to dampen vibrations. I often use spikes on the end of the tripod legs when on soft ground in a wood or meadow rather than the standard rubber feet. A fast shutter speed is essential to freeze action and to overcome camera movement. As a rule of thumb use the lens focal length to determine the slowest shutter speed to use: 1/300^th second with a 300mm lens and 1/500^th second with a 500mm lens etc. It generally needs to be faster than this to freeze wing beats: 1/2500^th second is a good starting point. Image stabilisation should be used, too. This can be incorporated in the lens or the camera body. It’s a high-tech system that either shifts lens elements or the actual camera sensor to help compensate for small accidental camera/lens movements. It will not compensate for subject movements.

Calibrate for pin-sharp accuracy – telephoto lenses and wide apertures make for a wafer-thin depth of field so it is essential that the focus is where you want it to be. Slight variations in manufacture of the lens and camera can result in a lens focussing a little in front or behind where you expect. For instance, if a bird is sideways on and you focus on the eye but the folded wing is sharp and the eye is blurry the lens is focussing in front of where you expect and the auto focus needs adjusting. Mirrorless cameras don’t have this potential problem because they use the actual imaging sensor for focussing but DSLRs use a separate sensor dedicated to this important task. Most DSLRs have an AF calibration feature in their menus to correct for this. It’s straightforward but a little time-consuming. I use a special target to calibrate the auto focus. Essentially you focus on one particular point and then see how far off your focus might be and make the appropriate adjustments. Here’s a link to the process, and you can use a clearly marked ruler set at an angle instead of a special target, copy and paste the entire line into your browser:

Adjusting Focus With Datacolor Spyder LensCal (digital-photography-school.com)

There are lots of other resources on YouTube and the Web, too.

This is a basic guide to using telephoto lenses. If you have any questions just drop me a Facebook message via Ealing Wildlife Group and I’ll do my best to help.

Zen and photography – mind over pixels.

November 6, 2020 / Nigel Bewley / 1 Comment

^{At the mention of Zen, a Buddhist monk in search of enlightenment might come to mind. When I think of Zen, I think of an approach to photography, especially my own wildlife photography. For me, Zen is a state of mind. A state of quietness and stillness and contemplation when engaging with the natural world and finding beauty in all things. I try and remember that Zen photography is more about mindset than the subject matter.}

^{I completely absorb myself in the process of photographing wildlife and nature and think of nothing else during the process. Time slips away like a flowing river. All that matters is the subject, the light and the creativity. It’s a way of meditation. A way of Zen. Nothing else seems to matter.}

^Observe.

^{Look at the light. See how it forms the shapes, lines, textures, patterns and shadows of the world around us. Notice the colour and quality of the light. Listen to the sounds and the smell of the location. Observe your intended subject. When photographing fungi emerging from the leaf litter, I get down to their level. I can smell their habitat. I can smell the fungi. Feel the wind and sun on your skin. Become part of the location. I spend several minutes getting into a Zen mindset, a Zen zone before setting up the camera.}

Try and Photograph your subject at its own level – if it’s on the deck get down there and become part of your subject’s environment. It makes for a better connection.

^{Set up your camera.}

^{When photographing fungi or botany, I will generally use a tripod or a beanbag. It slows me down. It makes me think. Don’t just point and shoot. Don’t think that you have the definitive shot and fire the shutter. Take your time and really look at your subject through the viewfinder or on the camera’s screen. Try different compositions or exposures or focus adjustments. See everything within the frame. You will almost certainly be more creative and come up with better ideas by resisting the urge to fire the shutter and quickly get the shot.}

^{Look closely at the world every day.}

^{For me, Zen-like observation works very well when photographing wildlife and nature but it’s something that I like to undertake every day. I can’t do it all the time – I’d be walking around in a complete introspective trance. Whenever I am in a wood, meadow, park or wildlife situation I ‘switch off’ and observe. I make mental notes, or use a notebook, to return if the light isn’t right or if the subject ‘isn’t ready’. Or I may have a camera with me and begin my Zen photography process. When you truly open your eyes and your senses there is so much to see. And photograph.}

Getting Closer – Macro Photography

September 24, 2020 / Nigel Bewley / 1 Comment

Long time EWG member and nature photographer extraordinaire Nigel Bewley has put together two new photography tutorials for us! This one is about macro photography, perfect for up close shots of insects and other small creatures. The previous one is about photographing birds in your garden. Check out his other tutorials Birds in Flight and Photographing Wildlife in its Environment. Thanks Nigel!

Macro photography generally means close-up photography, usually of very small subjects such as insects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is the same or greater than life-size. It’s a specialist area of photography and special kit is required, but it needn’t cost the earth. Remember that most compact cameras have a macro mode, allowing the lens to focus at a short distance. Many standard lenses, fixed focal length or zoom, will focus close enough to photograph natural patterns, groups of flowers and fungi and larger insects etc. No further kit is required. Interchangeable macro lenses for DSLRs come in different focus lengths and most can be used as ‘ordinary’ lenses. I own three macro lenses: a 100mm which I use generally. I also use it for other applications: portraiture and for photographing large format vintage glass negatives in order to digitise them. I have a 180mm macro lens which is more unwieldy than the 100mm but has the great advantage of having a longer minimum focus distance: I can stand further away to get a macro shot – ideal for skittish subjects that will flit off if I get too close. My other macro lens is very specialised and difficult to use. It’s a Canon MP-E 65mm and can go up to 5x life size.

Use extension tubes – these are simple metal tubes with no glass, weigh very little and are easy to use. They fit between the camera body and lens and increase the close-focusing of the lens with no effect on optical quality. It’s best to use ones with contacts between camera and lens so the metering system still works. Autofocus remains but it is always best to use manual focus with macro photography. If you buy extension tubes, make sure you get ones for your camera system – Canon, Nikon etc. Mine are third-party but work very well. If you are unsure buy ones made by your camera manufacturer.

*They can be stacked or used individually and turn standard lenses into close-focus lenses.*

Use a supplementary close-up lens – These are magnifying lenses that fit onto the front of standard lenses to facilitate close-focusing without any significant decrease in image quality. Canon make excellent two-element close-up lenses that can be used with any manufacturer’s lenses and work very well with telephoto zoom lenses. Make sure you buy one with the correct filter diameter to fit your lens and they come in different focal lengths. Canon make single element lenses, too, but these aren’t quite as good. Look for the identifier “D” which signifies a two element lens. Supplementary close-up lenses can also be used with macro lenses to great effect. I use a Raynox DCR-250 close-up lens. It clips to the front of a macro or zoom lens to magnify the image by about x3 and works very well.

*A Canon two-element close-up lens “D” and a Raynox DCR-250. Both are excellent.*

Invest in a macro lens – The greatest benefit of a ‘proper’ macro lens is that they will provide at least a life-size magnification (1:1). Some will go beyond life-size, up to 5:1 (which makes a spider look very scary). Supplementary close-up lenses can be used with them to great effect and can increase the magnification of the bare lens tremendously.

*A Mining Bee taken with a 100mm macro lens and a Raynox DCR-250 close-up lens*

Choose a focal length that suits you best. 50mm macro lenses have limited use as they force you to set up very close to your subject which isn’t always practical. Your subject may be scared off, for a start. Mid-range 100mm lenses are probably the most versatile and the most cost-effective. Lenses in the range of 150mm to 200mm allow a greater working distance and will also provide a more diffused or blurred background to make the in-focus subject stand out. Macro lenses are designed to provide the best image quality at close-focusing distances but will also focus to infinity, so can be used as ‘ordinary’ lenses.

Tips – Try and use manual focus rather than auto-focus. The depth of field is often very shallow and the camera’s auto-focus system can be confused and doesn’t know what you want to focus on. Use your camera’s depth of field preview button to see what’s sharp and what isn’t. If your subject is moving around, try continuous auto-focus. You may get lucky, especially if you fire a burst of shots. Firing a burst may be a good option when using manual focus, too. When in manual focus once the focus has been found try moving your body, and therefore the camera, very slightly closer and further away to fine tune the focus. Take a breath, breathe out slowly, lock your arms, brace your body and gently press the shutter. If the subject is still consider using a tripod. If you are using a tripod enable mirror lock-up. This means that when the shutter is first pressed the camera’s mirror flips up (the viewfinder goes black), then wait a moment for any in-camera vibrations to subside and press the shutter again and the photograph is taken. Consider using a cable release to reduce vibrations further. Often it is best to photograph butterflies, dragonflies, other insects and spiders first thing in the morning when it’s chilly. They tend to keep still at such times and may also have a coating of dew which can be visually very interesting. Wait for a still day, too. Choose a fast shutter speed, 1/500 sec is a good starting point with an aperture of f/8 to f/16 to get a reasonable depth of field and try and get your subject in the same plane of focus – that is to say parallel to the camera and not at an angle. If your subject is parallel with the camera you stand a good chance of getting the head and tail sharp otherwise it will be one or the other. Practice, practice, practice. Bring a small flower indoors and in a bright room practice with that.

Nigel Bewley

Photographing Birds in Your Garden

September 24, 2020 / Nigel Bewley / 1 Comment

Long time EWG member and nature photographer extraordinaire Nigel Bewley has put together two new photography tutorials for us! This one is about photographing birds in your garden and the next one is about macro photography. Check out his other tutorials Birds in Flight and Photographing Wildlife in its Environment. Thanks Nigel!

First, attract birds to your garden! – Provide bird food in regularly cleaned feeders positioned near to shrubs or trees high enough to be out of a cat’s leap and fresh, clean water in a bird bath. Check out the ‘how to attract birds and wildlife’ advice from the RSPB.

Your garden is a wildlife stage – If birds come into your garden it can be straightforward to photograph them. With a little craft and guile you can get some very pleasing shots.

Set the scene – I use interesting and natural looking sticks and twigs as well as larger pieces of wood to serve as perches for garden birds. These can be positioned on a workbench – the vice is really useful, tied to something in the garden like railings or a garden chair, or otherwise bodged somehow. I have a couple of articulated arms with jaws at each end that are really useful. Position perches near food: the birds will soon come in.

*Collect a variety of sticks, twigs and interesting pieces of wood for perches.*

*Devise a method of fixing the perches near a source of food.*

Get to know your birds – Watch their behaviour. They may prefer to be very close to shrubs or other cover, or a particular sort of perch in a particular place in the garden.

Robin — The robin preferred a high vantage point, the blue tits made do with the railings.

Blue tits — The robin preferred a high vantage point, the blue tits made do with the railings.

Use props – Consider using props for the birds to perch on. Clay pots, interesting looking watering cans and tool handles etc. Use your imagination to set up an interesting scene.

*The jars are in the garden for decoration, I moved them into a suitable position.* *The tap is a fixture in the garden so I moved myself into a suitable position!*

Go natural – Birds will use natural perches, of course. Keep observing and get to know their behaviour and favourite spots in the garden at different times of the day.

*The blackcap sat in the shrubs,* *so did this great spotted woodpecker. Keep looking!*

Choose an interesting background – I like plain, out of focus backgrounds without any intruding clutter. If you are using moveable perches, do just that and move the perches so that the background is uncluttered and a few feet at least behind the perch in order to throw it out of focus. Move the perches around or take up a position to vary the background. If a shrub is in flower, make use of that. Sometimes moving the perch or camera a just a little makes a big difference to the composition and the background.

*A soft green background works well for this goldfinch and the greenfinch set against the sky sets it off nicely without any distractions. Both shots are looking upwards.*

The greenfinch perched in front of a clematis. The chaffinch’s background is nicely colourful without being distracting. I like the stick, too. It looks very interesting.

Clock the light – My garden faces east, which means that the sun is behind me in the morning and I’m looking into the bright light in the afternoon and evening. Both front-lit (with the sun behind you) and back-lit (with the sun behind your subject) photographs can work really well. Side lighting can work well, too, to bring out texture in the feathers.

*A front-lit great spotted woodpecker, left, and one that is back-lit. Each photograph has a quite different feel and note the light shining through the feathers on the back-lit bird.*

*A side-lit greenfinch ‘models’ the bird and adds texture to the feathers.*

Find a spot – I photograph from both inside the house and from the garden. Often I shoot through an open door and sometimes through the glass. Window glass isn’t optically great and can soften the shot and it must be clean! If the door is open, I’ll be inside the house by a few feet and largely ignored if I stay still or move slowly. If I’m in the garden I’ll usually sit or stand covered with a bag hide. This is a like an unstructured tent which covers me and my camera with a hole for the lens and a netting window for me to see out. It can get hot!

*Photograph from inside, through an open or closed door or window. Keep the glass clean, without greasy smears. A bag hide is a good idea. (Photo courtesy Mike Lane).*

Cameras and lenses and such – One of the benefits of photographing garden birds is that they can come quite close, so you won’t need a very long lens. A 100mm to 400mm zoom is ideal, even a standard 50mm lens can be used to good effect but won’t let you ‘fill the frame’. A tripod can be a good idea because you can set the camera up, pre-focus on the perch where the bird will land, make some test exposures and then simply fire the shutter when the time is right. One you have pre-focused, switch the lens to manual focus so that the focus is locked in. You can always tweak the focus manually if necessary.

Otherwise, use auto-focus set to subject tracking. Canon calls this function “AI Servo”. Nikon calls it AF-C or Continuous Servo. As long as you have the camera’s focus point or points on the bird, the camera will do its best to keep it focused.

Set a fast shutter speed whether you are hand-holding or using a tripod. The bird will sometimes oblige and sit still, but it’s usually a fast-moving ball of feathers. Use a minimum of 1/500sec and the faster the better to freeze the action.

Set an aperture of around f/5.6 or f/8 to achieve a good depth of field to get the bird in focus without having the background anywhere near sharp. For an uncluttered, blurred background try and keep a separation of at least three feet between it and the perch. More is better.

Try setting your ISO to Auto. The camera will continuously adjust it’s sensitivity to the changing conditions.

On an overcast day, typical settings would be 1/500sec at f/8 at ISO 500. Bright sun these might be 1/1000sec, f/8, ISO125. Use aperture priority to dial in a particular value or shutter priority to put the onus on speed. I always shoot in manual: I dial in the shutter speed and aperture I want and with the ISO in Auto, the camera looks after the exposure.

Set the camera’s drive to continuous high-speed to increase your chances of getting a ‘keeper’. A downside to this technique is that the shutter may make a bit of noise and this could scare the bird.

Finally, always keep a camera handy. You just never know what might come in to your garden and if you have a camera nearby you stand a chance of photographing it.

*I only got this photograph of a sparrowhawk with an unfortunate goldfinch in the garden because I keep a camera handy. I probably had three seconds to grab the shot.*

Keep practising and keep well and safe.

Nigel Bewley