Digital Bird Photography
©2004 Harri Vainola
©2004 Harri Vainola
Birds don't really want to be famous, not at least among the human kind; this is a cause for a great deal of trouble and expense, for a bird photographer.
I will go for great lengths to ensure, that I will not disturb the birds I photograph; this is not easy, as I photograph wild birds, which tend to disappear at the first sight of me. So I carry equipment, which is not either lightweight, or inexpensive.
Digital SLR cameras have come to an age over the recent years; they offer substantial benefits on many technical areas (which I will not cover here).
Photographers have always post-processed their work in the darkroom; digital photography has brought this to everyone's home computer. I welcome this; the process is easier and safer, but it also opens image-altering possibilities beyond those of the film media.
This leaves the question, how much an image may be altered ? Should one's goal be to create original, digital paintings, the answer is obvious; as much as one desires.
How about bird photographs ? This is a question of taste, and a one of conscience; this is how I see the matter:
An integral part of photography is the ability for the viewer to see the world trough the "eyes" of the photographer; this is the "real" world the photographer experienced trough the viewfinder. Making substantial changes to a photograph takes it towards being a painting, not a photograph. There's nothing wrong of making a painting; it is just this, in a way, a romantic ability of a photograph to portray the "real" world, as oppose to the painter's imagination, that I like in photographs in the first place.
Taking exactly the kind of photograph you want to, especially, when your subject is not co-operating, is hard; altering the image afterwards is the easy way out, resulting, in my opinion, in less compelling work.
I strive to keep the image as close to original as possible: Most of my photographs are full frame; the cropped ones tend to fall in one of the two categories; either I wanted to show the viewer a memorable detail (hopefully these ones are obvious), or, I managed to tilt the horizon, correcting of which cuts the frame slightly.
Staying with the original full-frame photograph is not necessarily an easy exercise; however, I feel, that it lets me to concentrate better on the image in the making. There's a danger of one's shooting becoming more random, if one takes the attitude of shooting everything, and only findind the image with the cropping tool.
There's nothing sacred, of course, about the picture ratio of a SLR camera; there are many other good formats to be chosen; this one happens to be mine.
My images are also shot in all-natural light; I have experimented with a fill flash, but I never liked the results. Granted, I mostly photograph on locations, where at least some visible light is available; shooting in a dense forest, I might think differently.
Using the fill flash makes many photographs, that would be otherwise quite unobtainable, at least fair; my problem was the one image, the potentially great one, that was also rendered into a fair one.
Also, I wouldn't go as far as saying that the birds are afraid of the flash, but it is definitely something that they notice as being out of place; this alone makes me too uncomfortable, for using one in my photography.
It should go without saying, that I don't remove or blur objects from my photographs, make composite images, or use sharp/soft layers for lighting effects. Nothing wrong of these techniques, but, in my opinion, it would be fair to note the use of them.
What I do use my computer for, is mainly to make contrast and saturation changes, and to apply capture sharpening. I find, that excessive sharpness sometimes detracts from, rather than adds to the mood of a bird image; so I'm rather careful, when applying output sharpening (one that would be visible in the final size). This is not quite unlike the custom in human portrait photography; showing every skin pore (or feather detail), may draw attention away from the subject's personality.
It is that individuality that I'm after for in my photography; I believe the bird photography should be more about the birds, than photography.
I'm sometimes asked about the equipment I use; all the photographs in the gallery have been taken with a Canon EOS 1D Mark II; this is a fast camera, with a build-quality suitable for fieldwork. The 1,3x camera factor also gives some welcomed extra reach for a 500 mm f4 lens.
I will go for great lengths to ensure, that I will not disturb the birds I photograph; this is not easy, as I photograph wild birds, which tend to disappear at the first sight of me. So I carry equipment, which is not either lightweight, or inexpensive.
Digital SLR cameras have come to an age over the recent years; they offer substantial benefits on many technical areas (which I will not cover here).
Photographers have always post-processed their work in the darkroom; digital photography has brought this to everyone's home computer. I welcome this; the process is easier and safer, but it also opens image-altering possibilities beyond those of the film media.
This leaves the question, how much an image may be altered ? Should one's goal be to create original, digital paintings, the answer is obvious; as much as one desires.
How about bird photographs ? This is a question of taste, and a one of conscience; this is how I see the matter:
An integral part of photography is the ability for the viewer to see the world trough the "eyes" of the photographer; this is the "real" world the photographer experienced trough the viewfinder. Making substantial changes to a photograph takes it towards being a painting, not a photograph. There's nothing wrong of making a painting; it is just this, in a way, a romantic ability of a photograph to portray the "real" world, as oppose to the painter's imagination, that I like in photographs in the first place.
Taking exactly the kind of photograph you want to, especially, when your subject is not co-operating, is hard; altering the image afterwards is the easy way out, resulting, in my opinion, in less compelling work.
I strive to keep the image as close to original as possible: Most of my photographs are full frame; the cropped ones tend to fall in one of the two categories; either I wanted to show the viewer a memorable detail (hopefully these ones are obvious), or, I managed to tilt the horizon, correcting of which cuts the frame slightly.
Staying with the original full-frame photograph is not necessarily an easy exercise; however, I feel, that it lets me to concentrate better on the image in the making. There's a danger of one's shooting becoming more random, if one takes the attitude of shooting everything, and only findind the image with the cropping tool.
There's nothing sacred, of course, about the picture ratio of a SLR camera; there are many other good formats to be chosen; this one happens to be mine.
My images are also shot in all-natural light; I have experimented with a fill flash, but I never liked the results. Granted, I mostly photograph on locations, where at least some visible light is available; shooting in a dense forest, I might think differently.
Using the fill flash makes many photographs, that would be otherwise quite unobtainable, at least fair; my problem was the one image, the potentially great one, that was also rendered into a fair one.
Also, I wouldn't go as far as saying that the birds are afraid of the flash, but it is definitely something that they notice as being out of place; this alone makes me too uncomfortable, for using one in my photography.
It should go without saying, that I don't remove or blur objects from my photographs, make composite images, or use sharp/soft layers for lighting effects. Nothing wrong of these techniques, but, in my opinion, it would be fair to note the use of them.
What I do use my computer for, is mainly to make contrast and saturation changes, and to apply capture sharpening. I find, that excessive sharpness sometimes detracts from, rather than adds to the mood of a bird image; so I'm rather careful, when applying output sharpening (one that would be visible in the final size). This is not quite unlike the custom in human portrait photography; showing every skin pore (or feather detail), may draw attention away from the subject's personality.
It is that individuality that I'm after for in my photography; I believe the bird photography should be more about the birds, than photography.
I'm sometimes asked about the equipment I use; all the photographs in the gallery have been taken with a Canon EOS 1D Mark II; this is a fast camera, with a build-quality suitable for fieldwork. The 1,3x camera factor also gives some welcomed extra reach for a 500 mm f4 lens.