I set myself a challenge: to capture garden bird portraits with impact within two weeks of installing a bird feeder.
Garden bird photography is all about preparation and foresight. Once you’ve established a feeding station, you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labours, but getting the set-up right from the outset is essential.
URBAN JUNGLE: GARDEN BIRDS
Photographs and text by
Elliott Neep
Copyright © Elliott Neep Wildlife Photography
(ENWP)
Thanks to the demands of stalking otters on the Isle of Mull, I have been stuck at home for a month with an injured leg. So to lift my spirits and exercise the old trigger finger, I set myself a challenge: to capture garden bird portraits with impact within two weeks of installing a bird feeder. Garden bird photography is all about preparation and foresight. Once you’ve established a feeding station, you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labours, but getting the set-up right from the outset is essential. We are going to follow these three steps:
- Find a location and shooting position
- Establish a bird feeder
- Align a natural looking perch close the feeder
Shooting Position
Although small, portable hides are becoming less expensive and more accessible, photographing from inside your home via an open window or door (such as I have), or from the garden shed door or window will suffice. Remember, the feeder needs to be close enough to you to shoot near frame-filling images, say 2-3m for a 300mm lens.
Location
When considering a site for your feeder, ideally it should be close enough to your shooting position yet with a background that is preferably over 4m behind the feeder so that it is rendered completely out of focus and diffused. Find a location that is evenly lit and a background that does not have too many deep shadows and highlights.
The Diffused Background
The most attractive way to photograph a resting bird is at eye level, with a diffused background, so that the bird pops out of the image. In principal, this isolation effect is created by using a wide-open aperture (low f/number) and a telephoto lens close to the subject with the background far away. The longer the lens and the closer the subject, the more pronounced the effect.
bird foods and feeders
Bird feeders come in all manner of shapes and sizes and range from about £5 to £15 in price or they can be homemade. When I establish a garden feeding station, I use a number of feeders with a variety of food to attract a wider diversity of birds. To suspend the feeders you can use a pole-feeder, a bracket on a fence post, a bird table, or hung from a tree branch, or even a washing line.
Please be aware that if you begin feeding birds, you have made a commitment towards their welfare and once the birds rely on your feeders, it could be devastating to simply stop.
A natural perch
British birds are usually very twitchy and predicting where they will come to rest is a bit of a nightmare. The solution: a natural perch to provide a platform for the birds to stand on while they feed or wait for space on a feeder. With a perch in place, you can anticipate where they will land and be ready in advance.
Always leave a plain twig or cane to act as a ‘regular’ perch so the birds habitually use it, and then swap the regular perch for something more attractive or seasonal when you are ready to photograph. If you are photographing predominantly small garden birds, use thin twig or piece of foliage as a chunky pole or branch will unbalance and dominate the photograph. Perches can be clamped or taped directly onto a feeder pole, taped or nailed to a fence post or wooden stake driven into the ground. However you attach the perch, angle it diagonally in the frame as it is more pleasing to the eye compared to a horizontal perch that ‘dissects’ the image.
the Technical bit
Once I had assembled my feeders and perch, I set up my camera and tripod. I focussed on a feeder with my camera on Av (aperture priority) and then set the f/number to its lowest setting, which was f/4. As I was using a 600mm lens, this only gave 
me about 10mm depth of field (DOF). I stepped-up the aperture to f/6.3 to get a little more and used my DOF preview button to assess the affect on the background. At close range, you may have to wait for the bird to be side-on to get the best detail.
Digital cameras will give you instant feedback and you can quickly assess the focussing, DOF, and background on a PC as you are already at home! The setup is the same for film cameras, but with a longer timeframe. When using film, shoot a test roll with varying apertures (starting at f/5.6), shooting distances, and background distances for each frame. You must keep a detailed written account of your setup for each frame you shoot, so you can go back later and setup the camera exactly how you need it.
DIARY
Garden Birds Diary - Day 1: Locating the bird feeder…
I am using a pole feeder which helps deter the city rats and squirrels. It is tall enough to exclude the majority of cluttered backgrounds, and is manoeuvrable enough to relocate as required.
I will be shooting through a gap between the sliding patio doors. I fine-tuned the background by looking at the feeders through the viewfinder and making small changes to my tripod height and angle.
I’ve G-clamped my perch to an old rusted tripod. Using a tripod allows me to rotate and angle the perch as required. A thin twig acts as a permanent perch which has been positioned below 4 hanging feeders. I have clamped an additional pot of bird food directly onto the perch itself.
Day 3: The Birds arrive…
After only a couple of days, the blue and great tits arrived and landed on the perch almost immediately. I have trimmed away a few straggly vines and dead leaves from the general area to avoid distractions in the background.
Day 9: First Shots…
The garden is very dull with little direct light and I have to shoot at f/4 on ISO 400 to get a reasonable shutter speed of 1/100th sec. With such a narrow depth of field, I have to wait for the birds to be completely side-on so they appear sharp throughout.
Day 12: Fine Tuning…
As I have a number of feeders, the birds are not resting on the perch for long as space quickly becomes available on a feeder. Today, I experimented by taking down all but one of the feeders - the effect was instantaneous. With less available perching space, the birds were forced to wait on the perch and invariably landed in the same place.
Day 14: Last Day – What can I get?
It has been a difficult two weeks with blustery weather and very poor light. I was beginning to wonder whether I could achieve this goal after all, but soon the birds began to fly in and fine-tuning the perches and feeders made all the difference. Towards the end, there was only one hour of sunlight so most are shots are form cloudy days.
The beauty of this set-up is that you can make small changes and quickly see whether it has had the right effect. You can also take this set-up out of the garden – it would be perfect for a small clearing on the southern edge of a woodland copse.