Setting up Shots -Bird on a Stick
OM-1 + 300mm f4 - 1/500sec, f5.6, -0.3EV, ISO1250
You can make a wildlife set-up pretty much anywhere and one of the best places to start is in your own garden. If you already feed birds in your garden, then that’s half of the job done. All you need to do next is to get the birds to land somewhere that’s more aesthetically pleasing than a bird feeder. This can be achieved by creating a perch close to the feeders but in such a place that there are few or no distractions in the background.
So the ingredients for a nice bird on a stick shot are: A bird, a nice looking perch and a clean background. Simple! Kind of…
Make a Perch
A fence post bolted to a patio slab. Simple!
We know how to get the birds in, but what about the perch? A perch can be anything. You could set up some quirky, funny shots using spade handles, flower pots, or even a gnome as a perch. If you are looking for something natural, then look on the ground in any woodland and you’ll be able to find moss or lichen covered branches that make for lovely perches and will add another interesting element and some character to the final shot.
The perch at my set-up is a fence post bolted to a patio slab. A clamp is screwed to it so that I can quickly change out the perches. Being portable makes it easier to experiment with distances.
Often, the trickiest part of getting a nice bird on a stick shot is the background. And this is because achieving a clean background is done through having a long focal length lens or a lens with a wide aperture, f2.8 for example. The combination of a long focal length and wide aperture will help to render any background out of focus. If you have read my first post you will know that long telephoto lenses are expensive. The answer to achieving an out of focus background without having a lens that cost the price of a good car is actually quite simple: you just have to ensure that your background is far away from your subject.
My hide only 2 - 3m from the perch.
Experiment With Distances
As simple as that sounds, the fact is that if you have a small garden, it’s not easy to ensure that the background is far away. One way to get around this problem is to get as close to your subject as possible. The closer you are to the subject, the more it will throw the background out of focus. This may be achievable by you simply sitting quietly if your birds are used to you. Or you could erect some sort of hide in your garden. I have even had some success from hiding behind the washing when it’s hung out to dry.
OM-1, 300mm f4 - 1/500sec, f8, ISO400. Such a cutie 😍
OM-1, 300mm f4 - 1/640sec, f8, ISO200. Get seasonal with your perches.
At my set-up, the background is far away so I never have to worry about it, not even when I stop my lens down to f8. Why f8 you may ask? Because I’m shooting from a hide, I can get quite close to the birds which means that if I have my 300m wide open at f4, there is a good chance that not all of the bird will be in focus. If the bird lands on the perch completely parallel (side on) to the lens, then f4 will probably be enough to get all of the bird in focus. But if the bird is positioned on an angle, there’s a good chance that at f4, not all of the bird will be in focus. You always focus on the eye, and at F4 if the bird is on an angle, the tail will likely be out of focus. And if a long-tailed tit comes in (the clue obviously being in the name) then even at f8, sometimes not all of the tail will be in focus depending on the the position of the bird relative to the front of the lens. The header shot proves all this. The robin is not side on to the lens and the focus starts to drop off on its wing and even more on the tail. Whilst I still love this shot, I wish I’d have stopped the lens down to f8 to get more in focus.
Experiment
So there is a small amount of trial and error involved in getting a clean background and all of the bird sharp and in focus, and the factors to experiment with are:
Focal length of the lens - longer focal length = shallow depth of field and background out of focus
Distance to subject - close = background out of focus but less subject in focus
Distance to background - far away = clean background and out of focus
Aperture - small aperture (f2.8) = less in focus, big aperture (f8) = more in focus
The key thing is to just get out there and keep trying.
Happy wildlife sightings!
