{"id":29081,"date":"2021-08-03T11:24:35","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T10:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/?p=29081"},"modified":"2024-04-21T11:37:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T10:37:33","slug":"bird-photography-guide-episode-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/bird-photography-guide-episode-1\/","title":{"rendered":"A beginner’s guide to bird photography – Episode 1: Sharpening your senses"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Long-eared owl | Sony A7RIV<\/a>* | Sony 1.8\/135 GM<\/a> | 1\/1000s | f1.8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of you may have wondered where I have been in the past year. My last review has been published long ago and the dust settles on my blog activities. There is a good reason: I have been out there and had an intense time learning new skills in a totally different field of photography. Now I am ready to share my knowledge in a beginner’s guide for bird photography.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This blog is free of visible ads to provide a good reading experience. If you buy your gear using the affiliate links (marked with *), you help us to keep the blog running and to provide new content.<\/em><\/p>\n

The COVID-19-pandemic has not only been a massive caesura in my private life but also for my photography. Much of my former work has been related either to travel or people photography which both wasn’t possible anymore from one day to another. After a short moment of weirdness and depression, I met a great biologist who showed me that there is much more to see than my perception allowed me to in the first moment. Discovering nature around my hometown was the perfect escape from my dilemma and incredibly satisfying as it opened my eyes for the hidden beauty that is already there and needs to be preserved. Every place that I visited from that point was a new discovery for me, even if I had been there before multiple times.<\/p>\n

When I went out the first time with the purpose of taking images of animals I only had my Sony 1.8\/135mm GM lens as longest option. Luckily (or unluckily), I immediately spotted an Osprey (rare in Germany!) but wasn\u2019t able to take a sufficiently close image of it.<\/p>\n

\"\"
My first bird image: Osprey | 1:1 crop at blog width | A7RIV*<\/a> | Sony 1.8\/135 GM<\/a> | 1\/2000 | f1.8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I didn’t hesitate for long and ordered the most obvious option in the Sony line-up: The Sony 5.6-6.3\/200-600 G OSS*<\/a>. Finding the right lens will be a post by itself so I won’t cover it too deeply here. Furthermore, it also is not the most important aspect of getting into wildlife photography. Almost everybody can buy a long lens and take good images in the zoo with it but being successful in the wild is a totally different story.<\/p>\n

If you want to take good wildlife (wild living – not prisoned – animals) images by yourself that are not taken in a premade paid hide or a feeder, you firstly need to understand that you need to sharpen your senses for nature based on the following pillars:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Respect<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Respect for nature and all non-human life is the foundation for the work of a wildlife photographer. This is a lesson that seems obvious but has to be learned prior to everything else. For me personally this wasn’t easy at first because I love to explore the world around me and I feel nowhere as free as in nature. Nevertheless, please keep these sentences in mind:<\/p>\n