Improving bird photography seems to be on the minds of more and more people that I meet when I’m out with my camera gear. Many folks seem to be focused on the potential benefits of buying new camera gear in terms of advancements in computational photography technologies, and enhancements to auto-focusing systems. While these factors can be important, improving bird photography can also be achieved without spending money on new camera gear.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

Regularly Practice Eye/Hand Coordination

Many photographers, especially those of us who are new to bird photography, are not accustomed to using long focal length lenses. Recognizing a photographic opportunity and then being able to bring our camera’s viewfinder up to our eye at the correct angle to quickly find a potential subject bird, is a fundamental bird photography skill.

This holds true whether a bird is in-flight, perched, or in the water. Many of the image opportunities that Mother Nature presents to us are fleeting in nature.  Birds can change their flight paths in a split second. Perched birds, especially smaller ones, can be quite nervous and move about on twigs and branches almost constantly.

Birds often feed very quickly to help reduce the risk of their meal being stolen. All of these scenarios mean that we often have very little time to find a bird in our viewfinder, frame our composition, and capture our image.

Improving bird photography involves us being honest with ourselves regarding the requisite skills we need to have, in order to be effective out in the field with our camera gear. Practicing our eye/hand coordination on a regular basis is one of the best ways we can improve our bird photography.

The more we push ourselves and our camera gear… the more potential for improvement that we develop. If you use a telephoto zoom lens it can be difficult, but worthwhile, to practice finding birds in our viewfinder with our zoom fully extended.

If our birding lens can accept teleconverters, practicing our eye/hand coordination with our lens fully extended with a teleconverter attached, can help accelerate our eye/hand coordination skill development.

This type of regular practice session is on the extreme end… especially with a 2X teleconverter… but it can make photographing a bird-in-flight with a fully extended zoom lens without a teleconverter feel easy by comparison.

Study Bird Behaviour.

Much of improving bird photography is found by increasing our knowledge of bird behaviour. Taking the time to observe birds pays huge dividends, regardless of the camera gear that we may own and use. Observing nesting behaviour. Noting common flight paths. Watching for body and head movements that foretell what a bird is about to do, can dramatically increase the number and quality of our bird images.

When we take the time to study bird behaviour we learn to recognize some common signals that many birds give us. Crouching and knee bends often predict a bird will be taking flight. As does a perched bird defecating. The direction of a bird’s head can indicate the flight path that it is likely to use. The angle of a bird’s beak often predicts the angle of flight that the bird will follow.

Learning the location of favourite perches of a particular species of bird enables us to anticipate specific actions occurring. This can lead to us capturing interesting, ‘precise moment’ photographs.

Even very common species of birds that are photographed in an action sequence can add some drama to our portfolio of bird images.

The more we study birds and understand their behaviours, the better able we are to create action-oriented images.

Practice Shutter Release Timing.

Seeing an image in our minds of the photograph we are hoping to capture allows us to practice our shutter release timing. It doesn’t take much skill to use a ‘spray and pray’ approach with bird photography. We may end up with huge volume of in-focus images… but often the majority of them will be deleted after-the-fact. It can be far more productive to take short bursts of images during a specific action sequence, rather than capturing one long run.

Some of the computational photography technologies like Pro Capture that are available make it much easier to capture specific action sequences. Practicing our shutter release timing with these computational photography technologies can help us reduce the number of frames we are capturing by tightening up our response time. Every unneeded image we can eliminate in the field, saves us time in post.

Use Effective Buffer Management.

It is important that we understand the buffer limitations of the camera that we are using. This allows us to use effective buffer management so we are more prepared for image opportunities that may suddenly appear.

Clogging up our buffer with long runs of similar-looking bird images creates a risk that we may not be able to capture something that is a bit out-of-the-ordinary while our buffer is still clearing.

If you can afford them, use fast memory cards as they will allow your buffer to clear faster and maintain your readiness for fast breaking photographic opportunities.

Learn Your Camera Inside Out

Improving bird photography becomes limited when we haven taken the time to learn how to use our camera inside out. It is important to experiment with various settings to determine what works best for us. Try to capture the ‘impossible shot’ just to see what will happen. We can practice making changes to our camera settings without looking at the dials and buttons on our camera body. This will help us reduce our response time to late breaking image opportunities.

Learning to use our cameras inside out sometimes leads us to push our ISO values and shutter speeds in specific situations. Understanding the practical limitations on how we use our camera gear can be helpful when trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of it.

Buying New Camera Gear.

Buying new camera gear is an ever-present option. It can be tempting to open our wallets when we read/view camera reviews. Or learn about a new lens. Sometimes purchasing new camera gear works out as we had planned. And… sometimes not.

In early June it will mark 4 years since I began shooting with my Olympus M4/3 camera gear… and I’m a very happy camper. Perhaps I’m a slower learner but improving bird photography with new camera equipment is not in the cards for me. I’m still more than happy to be experimenting and learning with the gear that I own.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. Images were produced from RAW files using my standard process. For those readers who are interested in calculating equivalent field-of-view, multiply focal lengths for Olympus M4/3 cameras by a factor of 2 and Nikon 1 cameras by a factor of 2.7. This is the 1,258 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

How you can help keep this site advertising free

My intent is to keep this photography blog advertising free. If you enjoyed this article and/or my website and would like to support my work, you can purchase an eBook, or make a donation through PayPal. Both are most appreciated.

Our eBooks include Images of Ireland, New Zealand Tip-to-Tip, Nikon 1: The Little Camera That Could, Desert & Mountain Memories, Images of Greece, Nova Scotia Photography Tour, and a business leadership parable… Balancing Eggs.

If you click on the Donate button below you will find that there are three donation options: $7.50, $10.00 and $20.00. All are in Canadian funds. Plus, you can choose a different amount if you want. You can also increase your donation amount to help offset our costs associated with accepting your donation through PayPal. An ongoing, monthly contribution to support our work can also be done through the PayPal Donate button below.

You can make your donation through your PayPal account, or by using a number of credit card options.

Word of mouth is the best form of endorsement. If you like our website please let your friends and associates know about our work. Linking to this site or to specific articles is allowed with proper acknowledgement. Reproducing articles, or any of the images contained in them, on another website or in any social media posting is a Copyright infringement.

Article is Copyright 2023 Thomas Stirr. Images are Copyright 2015-2023 Thomas Stirr. All rights reserved. No use, duplication or adaptation of any kind is allowed without written consent. If you see this article reproduced anywhere else it is an unauthorized and illegal use. Posting comments on offending websites and calling out individuals who steal intellectual property is always appreciated!