How do you know you are getting close enough?

A humorous but real list I give the students in my wild bird photograohy class: How do you know you are getting close enough to the wild birds? (My secret is to get very close and still use a long lens)

1 - Hey it's a bird.
2- I always did like Robins. (next might have been you can tell what sex it is but too many birds, both sexes look the same.)
3- You need to swith to vertical from horiz. to fit the bird into the frame.
4- You can tell me the color of their eyes. Many birds eyes are not black but a very dark red or brown, etc. I have a chart of the eye color change in the first 5 years of a Bald Eagles life. Great ID tip.
5- You can tell me the color of their tounge. If you ever have to guess - say orange.
6- You are using the clarity of the eye ring for editing images.
7- If you enlarge the eye, you can see your reflection in it.

How are you doing?

gasrocks wrote in post #12007311
A humorous but real list I give the students in my wild bird photograohy class: How do you know you are getting close enough to the wild birds? (My secret is to get very close and still use a long lens)

1 - Hey it's a bird.
2- I always did like Robins. (next might have been you can tell what sex it is but too many birds, both sexes look the same.)
3- You need to swith to vertical from horiz. to fit the bird into the frame.
4- You can tell me the color of their eyes. Many birds eyes are not black but a very dark red or brown, etc. I have a chart of the eye color change in the first 5 years of a Bald Eagles life. Great ID tip.
5- You can tell me the color of their tounge. If you ever have to guess - say orange.
6- You are using the clarity of the eye ring for editing images.
7- If you enlarge the eye, you can see your reflection in it.

How are you doing?

Those are all good tips & advice.

Regards,

And tell us all where you are on the list usually.

I came up with a couple, shooting on the Farne Islands a couple of years ago.

1) When you are having to use the 24mm end of your 24-105L in order to get the whole bird in.

2) When you are having to shuffle backwards to focus because the bird is within your 8ft minimum focus distance. One particular puffin was a right bu**er, it kept following me as I shuffled backwards and stayed within the 8', obviously didn't want it's picture taken.

Amazing experience shooting on an island bird colony, you find yourself in a target rich environment and don't have to stalk anything they just sit there.

That's kinda cheating. I remember once I was out driving around "the block" and saw a Peacock. Stopped and got out with my 500. He came toward me. I forgot people riase Peacocks around here and he must have escaped. I kept running backwards and he followed. Probably thougth I was going to feed him.

gasrocks wrote in post #12007724
That's kinda cheating. I remember once I was out driving around "the block" and saw a Peacock. Stopped and got out with my 500. He came toward me. I forgot people riase Peacocks around here and he must have escaped. I kept running backwards and he followed. Probably thougth I was going to feed him.

I don't think that is quite the same, but I agree bird photography is easier on an island where they don't feel particularly threatened (in fact photographers are in more danger from the birds - hard hats are recommended ). They are still wild birds, however, which I doubt was the case with the peacock.

I shoot birds in many situations, not all as easy as on the Farnes by any means, but I wouldn't call taking photos in a seabird breeding colony 'cheating', it's still recording an aspect of nature.

Sorry for my poor choice of words, spoken in jest. What you do is very valid just not what I had in mind when I made the post. Yes, the Peacock was indeed tame I found out. Making fun of myself for initially treating it as I do all wild birds. Sorry.

You get close enough when the birds spit on the lens

And when once more you are going to get clipped wings or a chopped off tail because you were far too close to get that bunch of feathers in flight, obsessed as you were to get a close-up of the beak, some feather details or that piercing eye.

gasrocks wrote in post #12007724
That's kinda cheating. I remember once I was out driving around "the block" and saw a Peacock. Stopped and got out with my 500. He came toward me. I forgot people riase Peacocks around here and he must have escaped. I kept running backwards and he followed. Probably thougth I was going to feed him.

Nah. Probably fancied you Peacocks are randy so-and-so's!

When they come charging! Which happened a while ago with a very agressive young male Mute Swan. I got up and ran! And yesterday a crow with a dead rat became very intimidating when I came too close. I backed off some...

Jeeeez. I'm going to have to go where I can find some of 'your kind' of birds. The ones around here take off like my camera was a 12 guage shotgun. They fly up into the tallest Eucalyptus tree they can find and sit there laughing at me.

I'm either going to have to get a camo blind, or a yellow 'Big Bird' suit.

LOL... I don't know about that yellow 'Big Bird' suit, Jon. Eagles or Vultures might see you as the tastiest lunch ever!

Jon C wrote in post #12035906
Jeeeez. I'm going to have to go where I can find some of 'your kind' of birds. The ones around here take off like my camera was a 12 guage shotgun. They fly up into the tallest Eucalyptus tree they can find and sit there laughing at me.

I'm either going to have to get a camo blind, or a yellow 'Big Bird' suit.

Another photographer might be photographing you thinking the big yellow bird is a rare species. The hunter becomes the prey (in photography) all of sudden.