May be use to someone who wants to have a go. I've distilled these from practice and study.
Tips for getting good bird images
With these you can make the most out of the gear you have.
A good bird shot is like any photo: it has light, composition and 'moment'.
Light
Try shooting during the hour after dawn and the hour before dusk. It makes for a softer more directional light. Have the sun coming over your shoulders.
Viewers usually look first at the bird's eye so make this or the face your point of focus. A catchlight in the eye always looks good.
Once you're good at this, try shooting against the light or at right angles. Against can produce dramatic silhouettes, right angles can give you a rim highlight.
A light cloud cover can produce useful diffused light, allowing you to shoot in the middle of the day when bright sun would wash out your colours and produce harsh shadowing.
Composition
Think about a bird's position in the frame: have the bird looking, walking or flying into the frame. If you have it flying, walking or looking out of the frame, that's where the viewer's eye goes. You can often achieve this in cropping so shoot with enough room to allow that.
Don't shoot crop your portrait shots too closely; give the eye room to move in the frame.
There are rules of thumb you can try: the rule of thirds; a frame to get a diagonal line or a spiral.
Taking your shot at the bird's level makes for a more engaging image. If it's on the ground, kneel down or lie down if you can. Take a tarp with you or lay the camera down and use the flippy screen if it has one. This is the single best change you can make to your bird images.
'Moment'
A shot is more engaging with the bird active - eg. flying, calling, grooming, feeding, mating.
With a perched bird, wait to see what it does. If it turns to look at you, snap. Eye contact gets bonus points. A perched bird will launch at some point so look out for it stretching out or swivelling its neck, taking a dump or turning into the wind. A bird launching is dramatic.
A shot is more engaging with the bird flying towards the viewer. Once it's past square-on you can give your shutter finger a rest. We've all got hard drives full of three quarter or rump views of birds and they're boring images.
Shutter speeds
We are crunched by the 'exposure triangle' in bird shooting. With our long lenses we shoot faster than in other genres; we have to take what light is available and our long lenses typically don't have wide apertures. That often means high ISOs.
You need to freeze the bird and avoid camera blur so use shutter priority or manual. Once the shutter is set with most consumer lenses you'll be using the widest aperture or one stop down, typically f5.6 or f6.3. Set ISO to auto and see if you can live with the noise this might produce. Sensors vary in how they cope. My APS-C is good only to ISO 2200 while the full frame is good up to 6400.
Minimum shutter speed suggestions:
Perched bird: 1/1000s is my default with a long lens but I'll lower it if the light isn't bright and take my chances. If you have a DSLR, take short bursts with continuous AF even with a stationary bird so you can pick the sharpest on the computer.
Slow flying birds such as herons and egrets: 1/1500s
Small flying birds like a Bee-eater: 1/2000 for some wing blur; faster to freeze it
Flying Swallows and Martins: 1/3000
I prioritise birds in flight so my default speed is 1/3000s (or 1/4000s with the very long lens). That means I'm usually shooting at f5.6 to f11. With BiFs (birds in flight) this gives some depth of field wriggle room to counter focus that's slightly off and with big birds means more of the wings will be in focus.
Portraits
Keep the aperture wide open or one stop down to blur the background as far as possible to reduce distractions.
If the aperture is still giving you too much depth of field, with a bird on the ground shooting at its height will push the background out increasing blurring. Standing for the shoot will catch closer background and increase the chance of distractions.
Birds in flight
With our new long lens we find it hard to get the bird in the viewfinder, and fair enough: the angle of view may only be about three or four degrees.
These things might help: look through the viewfinder, not into it; ie. imagine you are still tracking the bird and you're just holding the camera between you and it. Keep your head, torso, arms and camera all of a piece; swivel through your hips.
If you have a zoom lens, start your learning with it wide and when it's working, zoom in a bit. Or if you can, for each shot start wide and zoom in as you pan.
Practice, and more practice. Go to a spot where there are common birds and take thousands of common bird shots.
Cropping in post-processing
This is normal with BiFs in order to improve the composition, and with experience you'll find out how much you can do without the image turning to mush. The more light and pixels you have on the bird the more you can crop. Keeping the ISO low gives you more detail with crops and greater dynamic range.
Gear
You can spend a lot of money on gear but there are three free things essential to a good photo - good light, getting to avian level and the number of pixels on the subject. Learning how to get close and down (usually) to birds pays dividends. Just going out to a place they're likely to be and sitting still will mean they will come within view - this is the bird shooter's version of fishing. It could be a license to do nothing and that's a nice part of chasing birds too.
If you want a camera and lens setup that will reliably work to shoots birds including those in flight, these are the threshold features in my view:
Very good auto-focus (fast PDAF or hybrid)
8 frames per second and a 50 frame or more buffer
A telephoto lens with at least the field of view produced by a 600mm lens in full frame terms (so 400mm with an APS-C sensor or 300mm with M43s). For BiF, 750mm to 850mm is good.
If you don't know what to expect at your shooting locations, a zoom lens works best. If you do and you want the best image quality you're up for a telephoto prime.
Mirrorless cameras offer the BiF shooter some distinct advantages: high burst rates without blackout; WYSIWYG viewfinders; smaller and lighter bodies. Some will buffer a rolling burst and only save recent frames with a full shutter button press (eg. Panasonic PreBurst, Olympus Pro Capture).
There is something of a basic choice ....
You want to be shooting handheld while out walking and exploit opportunities as they arise. Here a lighter, more compact camera and lens are needed. A micro four-thirds, an APS-C sensor or a mirrorless full frame body will suit. Some bridge cameras with supertelephoto lenses can be used too - the trade-off here is that smaller sensors capture less light and detail.
Or you want the best image quality and tend to take bird portraits. You plan trips to hotspots and know what to expect. Here a full-frame sensor body with a long fast prime lens works. Usually that will be mounted on a tripod.
Tips for getting good bird images
With these you can make the most out of the gear you have.
A good bird shot is like any photo: it has light, composition and 'moment'.
Light
Try shooting during the hour after dawn and the hour before dusk. It makes for a softer more directional light. Have the sun coming over your shoulders.
Viewers usually look first at the bird's eye so make this or the face your point of focus. A catchlight in the eye always looks good.
Once you're good at this, try shooting against the light or at right angles. Against can produce dramatic silhouettes, right angles can give you a rim highlight.
A light cloud cover can produce useful diffused light, allowing you to shoot in the middle of the day when bright sun would wash out your colours and produce harsh shadowing.
Composition
Think about a bird's position in the frame: have the bird looking, walking or flying into the frame. If you have it flying, walking or looking out of the frame, that's where the viewer's eye goes. You can often achieve this in cropping so shoot with enough room to allow that.
Don't shoot crop your portrait shots too closely; give the eye room to move in the frame.
There are rules of thumb you can try: the rule of thirds; a frame to get a diagonal line or a spiral.
Taking your shot at the bird's level makes for a more engaging image. If it's on the ground, kneel down or lie down if you can. Take a tarp with you or lay the camera down and use the flippy screen if it has one. This is the single best change you can make to your bird images.
'Moment'
A shot is more engaging with the bird active - eg. flying, calling, grooming, feeding, mating.
With a perched bird, wait to see what it does. If it turns to look at you, snap. Eye contact gets bonus points. A perched bird will launch at some point so look out for it stretching out or swivelling its neck, taking a dump or turning into the wind. A bird launching is dramatic.
A shot is more engaging with the bird flying towards the viewer. Once it's past square-on you can give your shutter finger a rest. We've all got hard drives full of three quarter or rump views of birds and they're boring images.
Shutter speeds
We are crunched by the 'exposure triangle' in bird shooting. With our long lenses we shoot faster than in other genres; we have to take what light is available and our long lenses typically don't have wide apertures. That often means high ISOs.
You need to freeze the bird and avoid camera blur so use shutter priority or manual. Once the shutter is set with most consumer lenses you'll be using the widest aperture or one stop down, typically f5.6 or f6.3. Set ISO to auto and see if you can live with the noise this might produce. Sensors vary in how they cope. My APS-C is good only to ISO 2200 while the full frame is good up to 6400.
Minimum shutter speed suggestions:
Perched bird: 1/1000s is my default with a long lens but I'll lower it if the light isn't bright and take my chances. If you have a DSLR, take short bursts with continuous AF even with a stationary bird so you can pick the sharpest on the computer.
Slow flying birds such as herons and egrets: 1/1500s
Small flying birds like a Bee-eater: 1/2000 for some wing blur; faster to freeze it
Flying Swallows and Martins: 1/3000
I prioritise birds in flight so my default speed is 1/3000s (or 1/4000s with the very long lens). That means I'm usually shooting at f5.6 to f11. With BiFs (birds in flight) this gives some depth of field wriggle room to counter focus that's slightly off and with big birds means more of the wings will be in focus.
Portraits
Keep the aperture wide open or one stop down to blur the background as far as possible to reduce distractions.
If the aperture is still giving you too much depth of field, with a bird on the ground shooting at its height will push the background out increasing blurring. Standing for the shoot will catch closer background and increase the chance of distractions.
Birds in flight
With our new long lens we find it hard to get the bird in the viewfinder, and fair enough: the angle of view may only be about three or four degrees.
These things might help: look through the viewfinder, not into it; ie. imagine you are still tracking the bird and you're just holding the camera between you and it. Keep your head, torso, arms and camera all of a piece; swivel through your hips.
If you have a zoom lens, start your learning with it wide and when it's working, zoom in a bit. Or if you can, for each shot start wide and zoom in as you pan.
Practice, and more practice. Go to a spot where there are common birds and take thousands of common bird shots.
Cropping in post-processing
This is normal with BiFs in order to improve the composition, and with experience you'll find out how much you can do without the image turning to mush. The more light and pixels you have on the bird the more you can crop. Keeping the ISO low gives you more detail with crops and greater dynamic range.
Gear
You can spend a lot of money on gear but there are three free things essential to a good photo - good light, getting to avian level and the number of pixels on the subject. Learning how to get close and down (usually) to birds pays dividends. Just going out to a place they're likely to be and sitting still will mean they will come within view - this is the bird shooter's version of fishing. It could be a license to do nothing and that's a nice part of chasing birds too.
If you want a camera and lens setup that will reliably work to shoots birds including those in flight, these are the threshold features in my view:
Very good auto-focus (fast PDAF or hybrid)
8 frames per second and a 50 frame or more buffer
A telephoto lens with at least the field of view produced by a 600mm lens in full frame terms (so 400mm with an APS-C sensor or 300mm with M43s). For BiF, 750mm to 850mm is good.
If you don't know what to expect at your shooting locations, a zoom lens works best. If you do and you want the best image quality you're up for a telephoto prime.
Mirrorless cameras offer the BiF shooter some distinct advantages: high burst rates without blackout; WYSIWYG viewfinders; smaller and lighter bodies. Some will buffer a rolling burst and only save recent frames with a full shutter button press (eg. Panasonic PreBurst, Olympus Pro Capture).
There is something of a basic choice ....
You want to be shooting handheld while out walking and exploit opportunities as they arise. Here a lighter, more compact camera and lens are needed. A micro four-thirds, an APS-C sensor or a mirrorless full frame body will suit. Some bridge cameras with supertelephoto lenses can be used too - the trade-off here is that smaller sensors capture less light and detail.
Or you want the best image quality and tend to take bird portraits. You plan trips to hotspots and know what to expect. Here a full-frame sensor body with a long fast prime lens works. Usually that will be mounted on a tripod.
