Bird Photography and Digiscoping

My special passion of nature-photography is taking photos of wildlife birds. Especially the songbirds are my favourite subjects. The photography of wildlife birds isn't only fun for me, but it's also a huge challenge for the photographer. Especially the songbirds are often very small and in most cases they're very timid,too.
Without a special equipment, it's hard to get half decent shots of birds. A telephoto-lense with a focal length of about 300mm should be the absolute minimum. But the 300mm telephoto-lens is only enough, if you're able to get a distance from about 3 metres from bird, e.g. at the feeder.
Who really is about to take decent shots of songbirds, should decide for a 500mm telelens or more.
Since the outcoming of the digital SLR Cameras , the problem of insufficient focal length has solved itself by the magnification of 1,6x caused by the smaller chip (in comparison too a film). For example a 300mm telelens combined to digital SLR camera gives a resulting focal length of about 480mm. And if you use a 1,4x teleconverter the resulting focal length is about 672mm. With that focal length, it's really possible to take perfekt frame-filling bird-pictures. As you can see, the digital era has lot's of advantages for the Nature-Photographers.

The easiest birds to photograph
are birds that are used to people
- like garden birds, or birds that are
living in the city.

And if you can afford a light-sensitive 500mm telelens (or even a 600mm) , you get a resulting focal length of 800 (or even 960) mm. And if the telelens is photo-sensitive enough, you can combine them with a 1,4x or even a 2x teleconverter. Then you get almost digiscoping focal lengths, and you'll be able to photograph small, timid birds without using a special hide or something like that.
But I have to mention, that there are often resulting other problem caused by that super-tele-lenses. Every vibration of your photographing equipment will be magnified, dust or fog in the air will be magnified, too. The sharpest pics you get at the closest distance to the birds. That's my (one and only) secret of getting razor sharp images so often (equal which set-up I use) - the closeness to the subjects.

When photographing timid birds, it's best
to photograph them out of a hide or
something like that. First it's better
for the birds, and second the birds
will come much closer to you - the result
is, that your shots get sharper
and more brillant.

By the way, the best posibility in bird-photography to get shots of timid birds is to shoot them out of a hide or a camouflage tent. Of course it's a little bit awkward to carry a tent on your phototours, but in most times the results will compensate for the more of weight to carry.
Another important point in bird-photography is to study the behaviour of your subjects. The more you know about them, the easier it is to find out, what the bird will do next, or when the birds appear where and at which time. If you know that, you will save lots of hours sitting in your hide.
A good hide can also make sense at your feeder place. If you're hidden, the birds will behave more natural and of course they will stay longer at your feeder and don't fly off at every move you make.

This Whitethroat I were able to
photograph at a well visited foothpath
so it was used to humans and I could
shoot it from a distance
of 3-4 metres.

But there are other possibilities to get timid birds in focus. Many nature reserves inhabit rare timid birds. But the birds having their territory near well visitid foothpaths are used to the present of people. So after a time they looses their timidness. Often you can get very close to them (or they come very close to you). Several photos shown here, are made at such locations.

On the left you can see a list of most of the birds I've photographed till now. The list and the photos will be updated everyday (when I get a new good shot, then I'll upload it the same day ;-) ). If you click at a birds name, all the photos of that bird will appear. The latest photos will be shown at the beginning, the oldest at the end....

So, I wish you much fun, viewing
my pics