Two from the new blind (pics included)

[Steve Foss]

I've shot out of blinds before and really enjoyed how close you are to the birds, but I finally ponied up to buy the el-cheapo pop-up camo blind from Cabela's, and it came earlier this week. This afternoon was my first chance to use it.

Now, blinds are no new thing to avian photographers, including some of you here. While it is not my preferred method of shooting them, because I so much enjoy being out in the wilderness, not in my back yard, I just want to emphasize a few points for those who want to get nice pics of birds (or just love being close to them) and haven't considered blinds. This will be old hat to some, obviously, but may have value as a basic primer for others.

It's so much better to shoot small birds from six feet away than 20 feet. Both these images are 100 percent or nearly 100 percent. The chickadee has a bit cropped from the sides. Not only does it make for a larger ultimate print, because there's little or no cropping, it allows the lens to be at its best. Even a consumer grade $150 70-300mm can take very nice images when the bird is quite large in the frame, and slow-focusing lenses can be pre-focused on the perch, making it faster to acquire the bird when it lands. And precise focus is important. This close to the lens, DOF can be very thin, even at the f8 I was shooting. A sturdy tripod helps volumes here, because you can train your lens on the general perch area and not have to hold the camera in your hands, which can be tiring. Plus, when a bird lands, you're already basically in position and save the time it takes to raise the camera/lens. With small fast birds, split seconds can mean the difference between shot and no shot.

Setup is important. A variety of perches, but not too many, is a good thing. Variety so the images don't all look the same. Here, obviously, it was pretty much the same branch in both images, though the light is slightly different. But too many perches offer the birds so many options it's hard to know where they might land. You also can swap out perches from time to time, adding to the variety.

If you have the right type of yard and feeder setup, you can make sure your background is far enough away so the background bokeh isolates the subject. Here, the woods in my yard are 40 feet behind the perches. Low-angle light is also a biggie. My setup is for late afternoon/evening light. I don't bother going into the blind when the sun is high overhead, because I don't like the way those images look.

And there's nothing like it when the birds are so close. Pictures or not, you get a different sense of the bird when you are so close you can reach out and touch them. Needless to say, on those days when I can't get out in the woods because of other factors, there still will be times I can sit in the blind for a couple hours.

Here are a couple from late this afternoon. Two of the most common backyard birds at northern feeder stations. Aside from that sweet low light, the only thing that makes these in any way nice to my eye is the background boken.

Both with Canon 20D and Canon 100-400L IS at 400mm, iso400, Manfrotto ballhead tripod

Black-capped chickadee

1/640 at f8

Pine siskin

1/800 at f8

[jonny_redhorse]

Nice Steve!....never get tired of these chickadees!....just that I haven't been to my feeding area since the "big snows"....maybe tomorrow

[Ufatz]

I readily admit to being an old curmedgeon, a throwback to the age of IIIc's Leicas, M3s and Rolleis, and so I hope you will indulge me and provide an explanation of the term bokeh. What> Huh? How can I have been around this long and never even HEARD the word? What? Why? When?

[Steve Foss]

Ufatz, the concept has been around a long time, although I don't know how long the word has been in common usage among photographers. Bokeh is the Japanese word that describes a blurred out foreground or background, and is best achieved with narrow depth of focus an an aperture with many blades.