Bird Photography using a hide – Photographing garden birds
this morning I've just been sitting here
editing some images and I noticed that this blackbird keeps coming to that
shrub right outside there, eating the red berries on it and I'd really like to get
a close-up of a blackbird eating one of those red berries so let's head outside put up a hide
as close as I can get to it and try to get some shots of it so I'm just gonna
head out in the garden and put a pop up hide next to that little shrub and
hopefully I'll attract the blackbirds back to it, there's a lot more red berries
to get. What's great about these blackbirds is that now in the winter they've switched
to a more vegetarian based diet that will enable them to actually stay here in the
UK when it gets colder and the can't eat invertebrates and earthworms like they usually do
they'll change their diet and start eating berries like this.
It's a really
nice image to get because it gives you a little bit of a sense of what they're
eating so a sense of their environment and ecology. One thing I need to tell
you though it says since I made the video on the Monal hide I've actually
started working with Tragopan I really do like their products but I'm
not going be reviewing them anymore I don't think that's fair as I work with
them and I've actually been given their whole product range to play around with
I'll also be making some videos for them on their YouTube channel using the
product if you want to check out some of those videos head over to the tragopan
channel I'll put a link in the description below.
So I'm just going to
use this hide here it's the Tragopan V+ hide and it just pops right up it's
really fast one to erect anywhere and I'll try and put this as close as I can
and I might head back inside to do some more work but I'll keep an eye on this
to see the blackbirds are bothered by this thing right next to them and if their not I'll
head back out I'll sit down in it and I'll wait to get that image final check I'm just gonna get my lens
and see what kind of a shallow depth of field I can get from where I put the
hide it's not right I might need to move it a little bit I'm shooting with the Canon
7d I've got my 70-200 on it my long lens my 150-600 is in for repairs something wrong with
the focusing so this is all I have now but to be honest this is what I would
want to use for this type of shot anyways I want to get really close I want
to have a shallow depth of field right I think this just about works but I
think it might actually be a little bit too close so I'm gonna move it a little
bit further back coz I want to be able to use the lens I have at 200mm so
that I can blur out the background as much as possible
all right the hide is set up put my chair in there I'm gonna go in, make a cup of coffee
edit some more images I'll keep an eye on that once I see the blackbirds are
still happy going there feeding I'll head back out now that only took about 15
minutes before the blackbird was back on that bush so apparently they're not very
bothered with the hide sitting right next to them great for me so I'm gonna
head back out there and try and catch them when they're back on it Ok, I've been out here for maybe half n hour, 40 minutes now the blackbird has come on the bush a couple of times the last time I got a couple of shots of him, but it was just as he finished feeding, he kept turning, he was sitting on the opposite side picked a berry and then turned away from the camera to eat it so after sitting in the blind for almost
an hour this morning every time the blackbirds come to this
little shrub it's been on the other side of the shrub I don't know if that's
because the hide is putting it off or if it's just this preferred branches to
go on but anyways I've moved the hide a little bit so that it can give me a better
view so hopefully it comes back now I should get a shot let's try again that was amazing
only minutes after I put the hide a little bit round blackbird came jumped
up onto the side I managed to get a good few shots of it I was shooting in slow
burst mode so as not to disturb too much and I kept very often missing that
first, first shot when he actually took the berry I didn't want to disturb it , I've changed into high burst mode now so if it comes again I'll get even more I'm shooting in 2.8 but this
shallow depth of field it's so shallow that sometimes I would get the berry in
focus and its eyes would be completely blurry so I'm gonna experiment by putting
that f-stop up to 3.5 all right it is time to wrap this video
up I've been out here way too long I only got the opportunity to capture the
blackbird a couple of times I'd say it was definitely worth it and I'd much
rather have a couple of really good shots of a blackbird doing like a
behavior doing something like this actually eating some of these red
berries than loads of average shots with me just walking around trying to shoot
stuff that's usually too far away one of the reasons why I just kept going was
that I had a really cool weather today I had rain I had a little bit of sun I had
overcast it was just a lot of variety even though I only got a couple of
captures of the blackbird today I really enjoyed it
and I want to say thank you guys so much for watching and please hit subscribe and I'll
see you in the next one
