We visited Fire Island this past Tuesday on our way home from Long Island. Here are a few of the birds we saw at the eastern tip of the Otis Pike Wilderness Area accessed from the eastern entrance to Fire Island National Seashore.

1. Yellow Warbler, Eastern Male

Hi John,

we all start out somewhere and need help.

My first suggestion would have to be - - don't shoot in harsh light, but I'm sure you know that one.

My second suggestion would be - - do your best to have the sun behind you no matter it's placement in the sky - - unless you're trying for silhouettes.

My third would be to always check for blown highlights in your histogram & review.

Now, in regards to photographing a bird against a bright sky. Most of the time spot metering & doing + EV will help you there. But in these kinds of conditions you'll still probably blow your sky. It's unfortunately the nature of the beast in harsh light.

Don't center your subject so much, try to work a tad more in Rules-of-Third. It tends to look better.

Hope this helps to start with. I feel these comments can be applied to all your photos one way or another. And you're lucky you've managed to catch a Killdeer playing broken wing. I've not caught that yet.

You're off to a good start

Lil

Nice finds.
Listen to Lil, she knows!

Lil Judd wrote:
Hi John,

we all start out somewhere and need help.

My first suggestion would have to be - - don't shoot in harsh light, but I'm sure you know that one.

My second suggestion would be - - do your best to have the sun behind you no matter it's placement in the sky - - unless you're trying for silhouettes.

My third would be to always check for blown highlights in your histogram & review.

Now, in regards to photographing a bird against a bright sky. Most of the time spot metering & doing + EV will help you there. But in these kinds of conditions you'll still probably blow your sky. It's unfortunately the nature of the beast in harsh light.

Don't center your subject so much, try to work a tad more in Rules-of-Third. It tends to look better.

Hope this helps to start with. I feel these comments can be applied to all your photos one way or another. And you're lucky you've managed to catch a Killdeer playing broken wing. I've not caught that yet.

You're off to a good start

Lil

Thanks for your insight Lil. Most of these things I know to some extent but they get lost in the heat of the battle to capture the image before the bird is gone. I know with time these things will become second nature but for now they are difficult to apply in the field in the short time I have to capture the image. More practice is needed for sure.

Like remembering to check my camera settings. Because you're right about my metering settings. I had been using spot metering most often but decided to try evaluative metering before the trip to see how that would work. I never switched back because I never thought to check this setting or to tweak the exposure setting +/-.

Composition is another thing I'm not all that good at. I know the basic rules and try to apply them when composing a shot or cropping an image. But I'll learn eventually.

To some extent, it's still about the bird rather than the image to me. I'm typically out birding with photography being kind of secondary to seeing and identifying the bird. Getting a good sharp record image is important but that tends to overshadow the photography aspect. But I'm having fun and learning a lot and that's what's important.

Thanks ever so much for your comments Lil. Much appreciated.

~ John

Dick on Aruba wrote:
Nice finds.
Listen to Lil, she knows!
Thanks Dick. Agreed. Folks on this forum have a tremendous amount of knowledge to share and do so very willingly. I appreciate everyone's help for sure. ~ John