How to photograph birds like a pro

Many people think that bird photography is about long lenses. It's not. It doesn't matter how long a lens you've got on your camera, you'll never be any good as a bird photographer unless you learn to get close to birds.

And if you can get close to birds, it doesn't matter too much whether you've got the latest $7,000 high-tech optics on your camera or an old $300 manual focus, manual diaphragm lens you found on eBay. It's getting close that counts. Real close. Don't kid yourself about how much a long lens helps. If you can't get close enough to photograph with a 300mm lens you won't do any better with a 600 or 800. You'll just be that much broker. I've taken close-ups of birds with a 24mm wide angle lens. That's not exactly common in bird photography, I'll admit - but it's possible. So don't go investing in expensive equipment just yet.

Your best bet for beginning to get close to birds is to hide in a blind - at its simplest, some kind of enclosure that allows you to sit inside unobserved, and watch the birds, who allow you to get close because they can't see you. There are lots of ways to make a blind. The most expensive is to buy one from some fancy hunting catalog. The cheapest is to use a window in your house or car, covered over with some kind of opaque cloth or cardboard with a hole cut in it for your lens. The birds are outside in the sun and you're inside where it's comfortable!

In between those two extremes lie many possibilities. An easy and portable solution is to pound two steel fence posts into the ground and tie a piece of plastic tarp between them. Cut a six-inch slit in the tarp and you're ready to go. You can place a cardboard refrigerator carton near the shore of a pond where ducks are feeding and sit inside. You're only limited by your imagination.

The way to bring backyard birds to your blind is by feeding them. What to feed and when depends on where you live and what time of year it is. If you're not sure where to begin, check with a local birding organization. It's usually best to place feeders near some kind of cover, like a small tree or brushy area; this allows birds to check out the feeder itself from a position of safety. A bird bath - especially one with dripping water - will increase the number of birds at your feeder by a huge factor.

Build your blind near your feeder, keeping in mind you want to shoot with the sunlight behind you. Pay attention also to the background of the photo, and try to find a camera angle that gives you a distant, plain background that can be thrown out of focus. If you're using a temporary blind, it may help to leave it set up for a few days for the birds to get used to its presence.

For the best photography, place an assortment of natural perches near the blind at convenient photographic locations. This will encourage birds to perch within camera range, and you'll soon become accustomed to where the birds most frequently land.

The easiest lens to shoot with in this situation is probably a 300 or 400mm. If you're not used to using a telephoto, though, start small. The longer the lens, the more difficult it is to focus quickly and to produce sharp photos. This is because camera shake is hugely magnified in long lenses, to the point that some beginners blame their lenses for poor quality images. At 300mm to 400mm, you can probably brace the camera on a solid support, such as the bottom of a car window or a monopod, if you're using fast film. At 600mm you almost certainly need a good tripod, although imaged stabilized long lenses such as the Canon 600/4 IS can produce sharp images when braced on a window sill even with 100-speed film.

Before you give in to long lens lust and apply for a second mortgage on your house to buy one, consider the large second hand market in manual focus lenses. A Canon 500mm f/4 image stabilized lens costs about $5,000 new. The manual focus, manual diaphragm f/4.5 lens made years ago by Pentax frequently shows up on the used market for $500. If you're wary of buying from individuals on eBay, try KEH.com, a very reputable dealer in second hand photographic equipment. You can buy a great Pentax body to go on the back of it for $100.

Use the slowest film that allows you to shoot sharp images. Before the advent of digital photography, the standard professional slide films were the super saturated Fuji Velvia, sometimes pushed to an exposure index of 100, which portrays birds and nature generally in vivbid color; and Fuji Provia 100, with more true to life color rendition. I've had very good results with Kodak Ektachrome Extra Color 100, a much cheaper highly saturated film along the lines of Velvia.

But you don't need to use these expensive films to practice! Bird photography, by its nature, is a huge consumer of film. Even professionals may throw out dozens of frames for each usable image. In the beginning, go to your local discount big box store and buy a couple dozen rolls of the cheapest 800 speed color print film you can find. That will save you money and allow you to concentrate more on the birds and less on keeping the camera steady. When you're on top of 800 speed film, move to 400, then to 100. The more film you shoot, the faster you'll learn.

To learn much more about bird photography, try Arthur Morris's excellent books, especially "The Art of Bird Photography."