Bird photography settings you should know.
Whether you’re new to photography or refining your craft, make sure you’re familiar with these camera settings to capture these fascinating, flying creatures.
From their bright colors to their majestic flights, it’s no wonder people want to capture birds on camera. It can be challenging to do them justice though, given their distance in the sky and their quick, often unpredictable movements. These camera tips will help you get them on camera, and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom will help you edit those photos to perfection — capturing birds’ majesty with stunning precision and high quality.
Tips and camera settings for bird photography.
- Exposure: Exposure is the overall brightness or darkness of a photograph. You can edit this after the fact, but it’s key to get the exposure correct when you’re taking the actual photo, too.
- Shutter Speed: Shutter speed is essentially how long your camera spends taking a photo. Birds move quickly, so you’ll want a shutter speed that can keep up. A good rule of thumb is a speed of at least 1/1000 for birds in flight.
- Background: Keep a good distance between yourself and your subject; the further the distance, the better the background blurs — allowing you to really draw attention to the bird itself. Shooting birds in winter typically yields better results, since trees are bare of their leaves and birds are easier to spot and highlight with a contrasting background.
- Quantity: Shoot many images. Taking photos in timed bursts ensures you’re capturing the bird's full range of motion so that you can have more choices when you reach the editing phase.
- Shoot with Sun: Photos of birds on cloudy days are hard to edit, even with solid tools like photoshop, and usually look washed out. Aim for early morning or late afternoon — times when birds are most active — on a sunny day. Keep your back to the sun to get the best light on your flitting subject.
Refine your bird photography with pro editing.
Once you have your shots, Adobe’s easy-to-use editing tools up your photography game by bringing out your subject’s details with heightened colors, added clarity, and more texture.
Explore what more you can do with Lightroom to take your bird photography to professional levels.