Trogon Photo Tours

MARCH 2013 NEWSLETTER

This newsletter features information on compositional issues in bird photography
 
When I first started doing a lot of bird photography, many of my images featured birds that were centered in the frame.  Because birds are often quite small and it's difficult to get close to them they wouldn't necessarily be large in the frame.  So to get what I felt was the correct composition I would simply crop the photograph accordingly.  My observation from leading workshops the past few years is that this is fairly standard practice for intermediate bird photographers and even some advanced bird photographers.   However as my bird photography has advanced both in knowledge of my equipment  as well as my ability to get closer to birds I now often try to compose "in the camera" as opposed to cropping to a pleasing composition in post processing.  This newsletter will cover basic bird photography composition, while the next one I write will consider when to break the rules. Each of the images in this newsletter is shown full frame to show how they were composed in the camera.

AMERICAN GOLDFINCH photographed May 2011 in Union, Washington at my friend Patti's feeder
stations. Canon 7D, 500mmF4 lens, 1.4x teleconverter 1/160 at F7.1, iso 500, evaluative metering -0.7, Feisol tripod.  This image illustrates pretty well the "rule of thirds" which is an accepted methodology in photography for where to place your subject in the frame.  With the rule of thirds the idea is to place your subject at one of the 4 axes which are created if you divided both the horizontal and vertical axis of your image into thirds.  I have placed lines over this image to illustrate each of the 4 rule of thirds axis points.  In this image the goldfinch's head is very close to the upper left axis - where the top line and the left line meet.  When you use the crop tool in Photoshop these lines appear to help you decide how to crop your image.  Ideally I think this bird would be just a touch further left and higher in the frame but it's head is very close to being at the 1/3 axis.  Note that this is the only one of the 4 axes that would work very well with this image.  You wouldn't want to put the bird in either the upper right or lower right portion of the photo here because then it would be looking out of the photo and that would create an unbalanced composition.  You typically want to place the bird so that there is more room in the frame in the direction that it's looking as I have done here.  As far as the lower left axis if you placed the bird's head there the tail would get clipped and the result would be unattractive.  Something else to note about this photo is the negative exposure compensation that I needed to dial in to keep the detail in those yellow feathers against the dark green background.  I like the rain streaks in the background but am not thrilled about the one going through his head.  I guess I could clone it out, but I'm not big on cloning things out.

BLUE-WINGED MOUNTAIN TANAGER  photographed January 2010 at Sachatamia Lodge in Mindo,
Ecuador, Canon 1D MarkIII 500mmF4 lens, 1.4x teleconverter 1/300 at F8, iso 400, evaluative metering -0.7, 580ex fill flash at -2.3, Gitzo tripod.  In the previous image of an American Goldfinch I was able to position the head of the bird at about the 1/3 axis of the frame.  Part of the reason I was able to do so was because the bird was perched in a vertical position.  More often than not birds will be perched in more of a horizontal position as this tanager is above.  Additionally if it's a portrait and you want to show the details of the bird, you want the bird to show up fairly large in the frame.  With that in mind there's no way to really position the bird so that it's head is at the 1/3 axis on the right without clipping the tail.  I could attempt to position the head at the upper left 1/3 axis(and it's not far off in this particular image) but that will sometimes leave the bird very centered in the image and without enough space to "look into".  In the end if you want the bird large in the frame and it's perched horizontally this leaves you with is a fairly centered composition.  It's nothing creative but it shows the details of the whole bird well and gives the bird some room to look into the photograph.  The photograph above is a solid, if not inspired, composition which does it's job of showing the nice details of the bird without having it too centered and without clipping the tail.   Next we will take a look at a couple of photographs in vertical orientation.

BLACK-FRONTED NUNBIRD photographed January 2006, Sani Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 20D 500mmF4 lens, 1.4x teleconverter, 1/125 at F6.3, iso 400, evaluative metering at 0, 580ex fill flash at -1.0, Gitzo tripod.  In vertical images such as this one, I like to place the bird's head fairly high in the frame at about 1/3 to 1/4 from the top of the image.  In this case I would have liked to have a little more room on the right for the bird to look into and a little bit less on left.  I was using the top autofocus point.  The difficulty was that the bird was moving it's head back and forth from left to right.  Back then I was focusing with the shutter button rather than using the back of the camera to focus as I do now.  If I had been using the back of the camera I probably would have been able to make a fast adjustment and recompose so that there was more room on the right.  All that being said, I think it's a fairly good composition (with a great pose).  I can just crop a little from the left and the bottom to give the bird more room on the right than is on the left.  However I do lose some pixels by doing that. 

BLACK-FRONTED NUNBIRD photographed January 2010 at Sani Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 1D MarkIII, 500F4 lens, 1.4x teleconverter, 1/60 at F8, iso 800, 580ex fill flash at -1.7, Gitzo tripod.  Here's another image 4 years later from the same area.  If you ever stay at Sani Lodge be sure to look for these guys that like to hang out right behind the cabins and catch insects.  Notice how in this image I've placed the bird just slightly to the left giving him more space to look into.  While the pose is not as dynamic as the previous image I think the composition in this image, uncropped, is much stronger than the previous image just due to moving him to the left of center slightly.  Some people will want to remove the plant intruding at the bottom by either cropping or cloning it out.  I generally agree with that but don't think those leaves are a major distraction.   At this point I was using the back of the camera to focus so I acquired focus, took my finger of the focus button, quickly recomposed the photo and took the shot. 

ASIAN OPEN-BILLED STORK photographed January 2011 at Beung Borapet, Thailand.  Canon 1D
MarkIII, 500mmF4 lens 1/2500 at F5, iso 640, evaluative metering at 0, handheld from boat.  When photographing birds in flight it's often difficult to get a pleasing composition in camera because you are usually using the center autofocus point.  The center autofocus point is best for birds in flight because you tend to get the highest number of sharp images or keepers.  I have found that I'm much better able to keep the bird from getting too far forward in the frame by focusing with the back of the camera and not the shutter button.  That was the case with this shot as I was able to keep more space in front of the bird than behind it. 

BLACK DRONGO on SAMBAR photographed January 2011 at Huai Kha Keang Wildlife Sanctuary,
Thailand.  Canon 1D Mark III, 500mmF4 lens, 1/1250 at F7.1, iso 800 evaluative metering at 0, Feisol tripod.  I was originally photographing this Black Drongon on the back of this female Sambar.  The Sambar had her head down and was munching on grass.  I had the center autofocus point on the drongo as the drongo would fly down to the ground to grab insects.  Because of that I was in AI Servo, or active autofocus mode (AF-C for Nikon users).   The deer raised her head for just a moment and because I was using the back of the camera to autofocus I was able to quickly recompose the image by taking my finger off the back focus  button, effectively locking the focus and move the camera to the left.  I only managed 2 frames before the doe put her head back down.  Being in AI Servo focus mode I probably wouldn't have been able to pull off this composition and fit all of her head in the frame if I had been using the shutter button for focusing also.  If I had been in Single Shot mode I wouldn't have been able to attempt the flight shots.  So using the back autofocus button, disabling the front focus button and only using it as the shutter button and staying in AI Servo (AF-C) I am able to react well to more situations.  I would have liked to stop down more here to get the does eyes sharply in focus as well but I simply didn't have the time to do so. 

In conclusion some of the basic rules for bird photography composition are
1) Give the bird more space in the frame in the direction it's looking
2) For verticals place the bird's head fairly high in the frame, especially if the bird is large in the frame
3) If the bird is small in the frame, generally place it near one of the 4 1/3 "rule of thirds" axis
4) Avoid clipping the tail or other parts of the bird unless you are going for a tight head and shoulders portrait.

I prefer to focus with the focus button on the back of the camera which allows me to stay in AI Servo (AF-C for Nikon users) autofocus mode, take my finger off the focus button, recompose and take the shot.  Please note if the bird is flying or running you need to keep your finger on the focus button and won't be able to recompose the shot .

Of course rules are made to be broken and photography would get quite boring if every shot followed the compositional rules listed above.