The Musk Duck Photography Special
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The Musk Duck Photography Special Compiled by Ian Ashton November 2020 Chaffinch 1977 UK England, Mamiya SLR and 135mm prime lens with extension tubes. Ian Ashton Here we are in November 2020 and most of Birdlife Ballarat’s planned syllabus meetings and outings have been cancelled including this year’s photography competition due to the Pandemic. I was to give a talk back in June, it was titled, ‘How times have changed’, an old-fashioned slide show. So, in place of that and to acknowledge that some of our members are not just bird watchers, this Musk Duck photography special was conceived. Birdlife Ballarat does not have a dedicated photography group, but many members do own cameras. It may be that in these uncertain times some members have contemplated buying a camera or upgrading their equipment or their knowledge. I thought it would be good to share some ideas and techniques. Left, my very first SLR was a Mamiya 500 like this one. The 500 related to the shutter speed, 1,500th of a second. My present camera can take photos at 1,4000th Of a second. Times and technology have changed. MD Photo Special Birdwatching and bird photography do not always sit well together, but of course most birdwatchers enjoy seeing photographs of birds. At one end we have the birdwatcher and at the other end the photographer and between these two ends there are as many combinations of the two as you can imagine. The best bird photographers know their subject and can have immense amounts of knowledge and patience to achieve the outcome they are aiming for. Personally I think of myself as a birdwatcher who takes photographs. I rarely have a particular species in mind when I have my camera with me (except of course on the rare occasion I go twitching!). I am an opportunistic bird photographer. This means I will never win any photographic competitions! But over the years I have kept my interest in photography. To start we will assume you are just beginning your photographic journey, that you know little about photography or that you don’t have a camera. The first question is what are you trying to achieve? The answer to this may influence what you buy or use. Are you a birdwatcher that wants to capture or record what you have seen? Or perhaps you want to photograph those birds you can’t identify or you might want to take exceptional bird portraits. All these and many more reasons might lead you to photographing our birdlife. Of these three examples one stands out. Although photography might be a great aid in identification in some situations, using photography as your main identification tool is perhaps the worst reason for taking up bird photography. A pair of binoculars, purchasing and learning to use a field guide is a much better and far cheaper option. The type of camera you use will to some extent effect which sort of birds you photograph and the way you photograph them and also the quality you end up achieving. To take a photograph of a bird, literally any camera will do. To take close up photos of small birds may require a zoom lens but to take good photos of birds in flight for instance may take both a zoom lens a DSLR type camera and some particular skills. So what do you own or what will you buy? If you have a small camera with a zoom of any size, head out and try and take some bird photographs. Lake Wendouree is always good no matter the season, there is always something to photograph. By doing this you may be able to work out if the results you get are good enough or it’s time for a change. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money a bridge camera will certainly enable you to take some very acceptable photos. Back in 2010 I took an SLR and 600mm Zoom lens on a trip to Canada and Europe, I had also just bought a small Nikon Bridge camera with an equivalent size zoom. For most of the trip I found the bridge camera both handy and in many cases performed better. 2 MD Photo Special The quality of bridge cameras is good enough for photo books, social media platforms or as part of a power point presentation. The problems start when you crop your photos, although this has improved to some degree on newer models, it can still be an issue. This is due to the sensor size which is about the same size as many modern phones. The great thing about small sensors is that you end up with sometimes phenomenal magnification. This literally can give you an equivalent lens size from 600mm to 3000 mm (Nikon P 1000). But even with some help from inbuilt stabilisation 600mm or more is hard to hand hold. The zoom range of most of this type of camera starts around 24mm, so you get wide angle to super zoom without changing lenses. Some bridge cameras have a slightly larger 1 inch sensor. This improves quality but at the cost of less magnification usually up to 400mm maximum, but with patience and some field craft these may give better results. Mirrorless cameras are a bit more expensive than most bridge cameras but you can choose a lens (or two or three!) to suite your needs. There are two main sensor sizes, Full Frame and Micro four thirds. If you put a 300mm lens on a full frame camera you get just that, a 300mm lens, on a micro four thirds camera the same size lens is equivalent to roughly 600mm. There is always a payoff in terms of quality, the larger sensor is nearly always better. The big advantage with mirrorless cameras is size and weight, although if you splash out on a 600mm lens for a full frame version, it is generally only the camera body that is lighter. Lastly, the DSLR. This is the weapon of choice for most professional and serious amateur photographers. The price range starts relatively cheaply for a base model camera and small zoom lens. There are again two sensor sizes APS-C and Full Frame. The cheaper cameras all have an Aps-C sensor. This will give 1.5 or 1.6 x magnification to any given lens, a 300mm lens becomes, roughly (depending on the actual sensor size), a 450mm lens. There are many models with this size sensor and there are many factors besides sensor size that will make the best of these cameras that cost in excess of several thousand dollars. 3 MD Photo Special More and more photographers are turning to full frame cameras and Prime lenses. These are big, heavy and expensive. But they are undoubtedly the best option if you are really serious. Once you have bought your camera DO NOT look at reviews, there is always some killjoy who will say that what you just spent a fortune on is rubbish! They are usually not the best judges. A few explanations. Cropping simply means you cut out parts of the photo you don’t want such as removing distracting elements like twigs, you may remove part of your image to make your subject look bigger. There is always a down side of this and it is usually a loss of quality. Sensors these are electronic devices that capture the images you take, they are placed in the camera where film was in days gone by. They are measured in two ways, Physical size as compared to 35 mm. Full Frame sensors are roughly the same size as 35mm film, Aps-c Sensors are about 2/3 that of 35mm and Micro four thirds half the size. The other is Mega Pixels, this is perhaps the most confusing. A physically small sensor with a lot of mega pixels might be nowhere near as good as a larger sensor with fewer mega pixels. Anything above 16 megapixels can give good results. Although the largest sensors with a big pixel count might still prove to be the best. Zoom and Prime lenses Zoom lenses have a variable focal length in many combinations. Simply put, this might enable you to go from a wide angle view capturing perhaps a building or landscape, to “zooming” in on small objects making small birds fill the image. A Prime lens has a fixed focal length, useable lenses for bird photography start around 300 mm. Extenders and converters Well these two things are in fact the same device, back in the days of film they were invariably called converters but these days they are referred to as extenders. They generally come in two sizes 1.4 X and 2 X. In rough terms they extend a lenses focal length. A 300 mm lens becomes 1.4 times bigger to 420 mm or 2 X to 600 mm. There are three main problems with extenders. A, they can effect a cameras Auto Focus when used with some zoom lenses. B, they usually reduce the amount of light into the camera. An f4 lenses might end up as f 5.6 or slower. C, Older or mismatched extenders can effect quality. Best used as a Prime lens and extender matched pair. Depth of Field this is the amount of the subject that is in focus, front to back. Imagine an Albatross with its great wingspan flying across your view. A small depth of field may mean only the body will be in focus but with a larger depth of field the body and both wingtips will be in focus.