Trogon Photo Tours

July 2015 - This month's newsletter continues our discussion of both depth of field and composition for bird photography.  Included are images from our March 2015 Texas workshop.  In particular we discuss when to use more depth of field than normal with one bird.  

Green Jay photographed March 2015, Santa Clara Ranch, TX.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/3200 F5.6, iso 800, manual exposure, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  Last month I spoke about the "rule of thirds" for composition for bird photography.  I thought I should illustrate it more clearly, here you can see the lines that I wrote about, this grid shows as one of the grid overlays when you crop in Camera Raw or Lightroom.  As you can see if you divide the image into 3 equal parts both vertically and horizontally you end up with 4 corner points that tend to be a good place to put your subject.  You can see in this example the Green Jay's head is near the upper left corner with plenty of room to look to the right.  When birds are in an upright position like this or small in the frame the rule of thirds for composition works well.  I think ideally I would have placed this bird just a touch farther to the left in the frame, I could accomplish the same result with just a small crop from the left and a corresponding amount from the top.  As for depth of field as I was discussing last month I use about 1 stop down from wide open as my default setting.  In this instance it works out well with most of the bird in focus except for the tail, which isn't facing me.  I could have gone lower on the iso but as always I am trying to keep a very fast shutter speed to stop the action and get flight shots. 

This is the same image from above with how I would crop it vertically.  Note the head is at about the upper 1/3 rule of thirds spot with slightly more room in the direction the bird is facing. 

Green Jay photographed March 2015 Santa Clara Ranch, TX.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/2000 F5.6, iso 800, manual exposure, Gitzo Tripod, Wimberley head.  Here is another Green Jay shot taken a few minutes later.  The sun had gone behind a cloud at this point so I had to change my manual exposure.  I didn't include the rule of thirds grid on this shot but you can imagine it from the first two.  None of the rule of thirds corners would work well with this shot.  This is always the case if the bird is fairly large in the frame and oriented (perching or sitting) in a mostly horizontal position.  In this case I again try to give the bird a little more room in the direction it is facing.  While I like the composition of this shot a lot and the image in general there is a slight flaw.  That is the tip of the tail is out of focus at the end and since it's facing me it's more of a distraction then when it is behind the branch.  So in situations like this where the tail is prominent and the bird is close it's actually necessary to stop down more - 2 to 3 stops to achieve perfection.  In this case I think F8 would have been perfect.  

Audubon's Oriole photographed March 2015, Santa Clara Ranch, TX.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/2500 F7.1, iso 800, evaluative metering -0.3, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  Image is cropped from horizontal to vertical format so it's about 50% of the original frame.  Here is another example of what I was speaking about if the tail is facing the photographer.  Even though I was almost 2 stops down from wide open and the image is cropped the end of the tail is out of focus.  If the bird was facing us it wouldn't be an issue.  I would have thought F7.1 would be enough to get it in focus but I probably needed something more like F9. As far as composition there is a little more room in the direction the bird is facing. With vertical format it's less of a problem if the bird is centered.  All in all I like this image quite a bit but again, it's not quite perfect. 

Pyrrhuloxia, male photographed March 2015 Santa Clara Ranch, TX.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/5000, F6.3, iso 800, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  Image cropped from horizontal to vertical.  I wanted to show an image similar to the Audubon's Oriole above but with the tail behind the branch, you can see that it's not a big issue if the tail is behind the branch and out of focus.  It's just much less prominent in this position.  I had plenty of light to stop down more but again I am always ready for take off shots. 

Green Jay photographed March 2015 Santa Clara Ranch, TX.  Canon 5D3 500F4, 1/2000 F10, iso 800, evaluative metering -0.3, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  Another time that I will use more depth of field when working with one bird is to get landing and take off shots when I am focusing on the perch rather than the bird.  In this case if the perch is fairly close you need enough depth of field to account for both the bird and the perch, since the focus is on the perch I need an additional 2 to 3 stops to get the bird sharp as well.  The other option is to try to focus on the bird and at times I do this but it's obviously quite difficult.  Using the method of focusing on the perch by either changing to manual focus or using back button focus, focusing on the perch, releasing the AF button and recomposing the shot.   Using the latter method you take lots of images most of which are bad but you generally get a few keepers.  I would have moved the perch further back but that brings the vegetation into focus more.  You can see at F10 there is quite a bit more definition in the background than in the previous shots.  This is generally not considered ideal in bird photography when you are trying to get the subject to stand out against a smooth background.  Although I certainly don't mind a background like this with a little definition. 

Common Pauraque photographed March 2015, Estero Llano Grande State Park, Texas.  Canon 7D2, 500F4 1/200 F8, iso 1600, evaluative metering at 0, onboard flash at -0.3, handheld.  Another time that when working with one bird you might want to use more depth of field is when shooting up close portraits.  This is full frame and to get both the beak and beautiful plumage on the head and wings in focus I needed to go down 2 stops.  The composition is a little unusual here, normally I would like to show just the head and shoulders or include the whole bird.  Including the whole bird wasn't an option here because the tail was behind a tree trunk and I didn't crop it more closely  because I wanted to show as much of the beautiful markings as possible and how well it blended into it's chosen roosting place.  Also noise would be a consideration if I cropped this more closely.  

In conclusion you should use more depth of field than normal when working with one bird if the bird is reasonably close and it's tail is pointing towards you, if you are manually focusing on a perch and trying to get flight shots or if you are shooting a close up portrait and you want most of the plumage in focus.  Some basic composition rules are to think about the rule of thirds particularly when photographing in vertical format or with the bird small in the frame, give the bird more room in the direction it is facing and don't crowd the bird too tightly in the frame.  Of course rules are made to be broken and these are just basic guidelines.  In next month's article I will discuss the challenges of photographing multifple birds.