More Bird Photo Experimentation

I decided to make lemonade anyway.

I thought I would do some experimenting with shutter speeds in the snowstorm.  I don't know where birds go in a snowstorm, and I couldn't find any in the trees around my house. So I went with the next best thing: My granddaughter Kay-Lynne's punching bag. My daughter brought it over for temporary outside storage and it never left.

I should note that since I added a UV filter to my camera last week, I've been able to get good pictures at lower shutter speeds. Where previously 1/400 was the slowest I could go and still get consistently good close-ups, that number is now 1/320 (and maybe lower).

Here, the first picture was taken at 1/250.  You'll notice that the snowflakes traveled about 1/2 inch during this time.  

(I think that means the snowflakes were traveling at ~40 MPH but my math could be wrong. I also think, based on the angle of the white streaks left by the snowflakes, that the wind was ~20 MPH. So the bag was moving a little, just like a perched bird.)

The bag, which is moving slightly due to the fast wind, still looks fairly crisp.

The second picture, at 1/30, would still be a good picture if it was a bird, though it is blurred slightly. There are no snowflakes, just long white streaks on the "film."  The most telling part is the big 'E'.  It's darkened slightly compared to the picture above.

I would consider this a fairly good picture, though not nearly as good as the first picture. And since it's cloudy and overcast, 1/400 isn't really an option.

I really think that the UV filter I added has improved my picture taking.

I like capturing all of the bird details perfectly. But since this picture, I've started thinking more about composure:

The details aren't blurry, but they are softened. Not what I would normally wish for. But I'm very, very happy with this picture.  Most of the pictures I like would look good in a bird field manual. But sometimes it's really hard to get close enough for that kind of perfection, unless you have the $8,000.00 to spend on the right zoom lens. I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of scratch.

This summer, I'll be doing a lot of experimenting. I'm still going to spend time trying to get closeups of birds I don't have good closeups of yet. But I'm also going to try to be creative at low shutter speeds.

Even if you can't afford state-of-the-art hardware, you can still take really nice pictures. It's just hard work. My solution is to spend a lot of time "lying in wait." My brother-in-law took an amazing wetlands sunset picture -- with the 2MP camera in his phone. It was poster quality, and my sister made a poster out of it.

Good digital cameras can be had for cheap these days. I bought Kay-Lynne a camera for her birthday this coming Wednesday (she never reads my blog, so my secret is safe). It's a really nice camera, with a modest zoom, for under $150. The trick is to improve the zoom level. With SLR, you just buy a zoom lens. But even without SLR, it's not too difficult, and it's far less expensive.  Here's one $40 example.

If you have fun taking bird pictures, I'd be interested in hearing from you. Especially if you've come up with creative solutions to getting close with a budget digital camera.

It just stopped snowing. Maybe today isn't a complete loss after all.