PERSEVERANCE PAYS OFF
Don’t give up before you have the photo you want.
There are many ways to get good photos. One of the easiest is to frequent good birding sites and shoot whenever something interesting happens. This way, if you have good equipment and good photography skills, you can amass a nice collection of decent photos over the years, and with a bit of luck you can also get some excellent shots.
I have found that the best photos are the result of spending long stretches of time with one species. This way I learn more about their behavior and where and how they move. Usually, after I have studied a species well and gotten to know its ways, a vision of the type of photo I want to capture starts to take shape in my mind. The vision can originate from the bird’s habitat, certain light conditions, the background, or the bird’s behavior. Having first envisioned the photo in my mind, all that is needed for bringing the vision to life is tenacity and skill.
Often, in order for an envisioned photo to become a reality, you will need many repeated opportunities to take it. Many parts must fall into place: weather with the right lighting conditions, perfect exposure and focusing, and the subject has to rise to the occasion, too.
The following are three accounts of how I made a photograph out of a vision in my mind.
European Bee-eater
In May 2008 I was in Hungary on a mission from the Wild Wonders of Europe initiative, photographing the charismatic and colorful birds of the Hungarian puszta, with the European Bee-eater as one of my main target species. I photographed it mostly from a blind near a breeding colony. Within a couple of days I had many photos of courtship rituals, mating, nest hole digging, feeding, and flying.
While photographing I noticed how Bee-eaters liked to perch on a favorite branch and dart off in hot pursuit when an insect flew past them, and they often returned to the same branch with an insect in their bills. Next they would beat the insect against the branch until it was lifeless. If the insect was big, the Bee-eater had to get it inside its bill a certain way to swallow it; this was often done by tossing the insect in the air a couple of times until it was in an ideal position.
I started envisioning a rather tight closeup of a Bee-eater tossing a dragonfly, a beetle, or a bee.
Such an image, a closeup of a rather small bird, would require moving the blind to within about 5 m (16 ft) of a Bee-eater’s perch, and a 500mm telephoto lens would bring the bird to the viewfinder at just the right size.
It took the birds next to no time to get used to my relocated blind, and they resumed their hunting activities from the perch. During the ensuing two days I used the best light, which is early morning and late evening, to take the image I envisioned. To freeze the action I needed a shutter speed of 1/2000 second. Even though I set the ISO to 1600, the depth of field was quite shallow at f/6.4.
A European Bee-eater and a bee (Merops apiaster)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 500mm f/4.0, 1/2000 second, f/6.4, ISO 1600, continuous focus with an extended central focusing point, Gitzo tripod, Manfrotto 501 video head, blind. Hungary, May 2008.
First I tried prefocusing on the Beeeater’s bill, but I soon realized that while they were handling their prey, the birds moved their heads constantly, which caused blurred images. Using continuous focus with an extended central focusing point yielded much better results, and by the second day everything fell into place.
A Bee-eater returned with a big bee in its bill and settled on the perch in a good angle toward me. After smashing the bee, the Bee-eater tossed it in the air a couple of times before swallowing it. I got two good frames of the situation, and one of them was pretty much what I had envisioned.
Bearded Reedling
The Bearded Reedling is a bit of an oddity in the Finnish avifauna. It is the only species that lives in Finland throughout the year in a reed bed. In summer it eats insects, and in winter it eats reed seeds almost exclusively. The best time to photograph Bearded Reedlings in Finland is in the winter, when you can walk on the ice and approach the flocks that winter in the dense reed beds.
During some exceptionally good winters with lots of snow, I have invested several weeks in photographing the species as extensively as possible. I have closeups, actions shots of feeding and drinking, and landscape and sunset shots—even a few images with a late evening moon.
Bearded Reedlings have short wings that are tailor made for shorts spurts inside the dense reed beds. I had some reasonably good flight shots of the species but was missing the really good ones.
In 2009 I decided to put all my efforts into taking flight shots. This is not an easy task because the birds fly mainly inside the reed beds and the spurts are only a few yards long.
I followed a flock for a couple of days, moving as inconspicuously as possible, and had my camera settings tweaked to capture flight at all times. Freezing the action of a flying Bearded Reedling requires a very fast shutter speed; 1/3200 second is needed to freeze the movement all the way to the tips of the wings, but it is possible to get good results even with 1/2500 second. I used continuous focus with 45 focusing points, because one or even an extended central focusing point would not be enough to keep the fluttering bird inside the focusing area among the reeds.
It did not take long to learn to read the birds’ behavior and to anticipate their next move. They would usually stop eating and start measuring up the next reed’s seed head. After several days of relentless trying, I got one great flight shot and a couple of good ones. The rest were mostly blurred because the camera liked to focus on the reeds.
Seabirds against the Moon
For about 30 years I have followed and photographed the arctic waterbirds and geese on their migration over the Gulf of Finland to the Russian tundra. This takes place primarily in May, and the birds are busiest in the mornings and evenings.
During migration peaks it is possible to see up to half a million birds in one day. On such days the traffic is heaviest in the evening and lasts all night. Over the years I have witnessed the nighttime migration of Long-tailed Ducks and Common Scoters with the moon shining in the sky a couple of times. At the latitude of Helsinki, Finland, the May nights are light. In the darkest hours the flocks are visible in the sky only if they fly against the moon. With a film camera, photographing this sight was only a distant dream, because neither my equipment nor the available film speeds could have produced the images I wanted.
A Bearded Reedling in flight (Panurus biarmicus)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 800mm f/4.0, 1/2500 second, f/9.0, ISO 800, continuous focus with 45 focusing points, Gitzo tripod, Manfrotto 501 video head. Espoo, Finland, February 2009.
The vision lived on in my mind, and by 2006, when I was on my boat photographing the migration along the Gulf of Finland, I decided to try to create the images with digital technology and a powerful telephoto lens.
As before, the migration went on well into the night, and with the moon graciously shining in the right place, I had optimal conditions for my project.
I had my camera on a tripod aimed toward the moon. My friend was doing a migration count, and because he was constantly gazing at the sky he could tell me when a flock was likely to pass in front of the moon.
During the three hours that I photographed them, more than 10 flocks of all sizes passed the moon, but the main part of most flocks flew either just above or just below the moon. Luckily, in a couple of frames I captured a flock flying right across the moon. A dream come true!
Common Scoters migrating (Melanitta nigra)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II, 300mm f/2.8, 1/320 second, f/2.8, ISO 1250, Gitzo tripod, Manfrotto 501 video head, manual focus. Porvoo, Finland, May 2006.