Birding in uttarakhand : First time in wildlife photographers shoes
Easter holiday was approaching and i didn't want to miss this opportunity of staying away from hot summer city life for a while , hush hush trip to uttarakhand was planned and i was ready to accompany Sudhir Sawant ( Sudhir Sir as we call him) for one of his birding trips. Sudhir Sir is professional wildlife photographer / documentary maker and owner of Jungle Trails,pune. We have been doing lot of small trips with him around pune , this was first opportunity for me to do a dedicated bird photography tour.
As birding was the only intention , I had to upgrade my photography kit, my trusted 55-300mm would not be of much use here hence i decided to rent out Nikkor 200-500 from Primes and Zooms , I now at least had proper wildlife photographers shoes to walk with.
This was the first time i was doing a dedicated bird photography attempt , I have love photographing animals with whatever limited gear i have but that has never been a primary focus until now so as expected i committed lot of mistakes and learned many valuable lessons. This is account of those mistakes and learning.
Its Huge and Its heavy..
My experience of using a large telephoto lens before this was limited to watching others use it from a distance so when i handled it for the first time i was intimidated by its size , the first thought which came into my mind was "How am i going to carry this ?" . My camera bags have been designed to carry lighter lenses , suitable for my road trips and treks , lighter and smaller the better. My current bags fits a camera , kit lens and 55-300 lens perfectly but this monster was too big for my bag , thankfully primes and zooms had given me a bag to carry it.
First thing i did is to go through YouTube videos of what not to do with large lens and tip i got was "handle the lens not the camera" , its sheer weight can easily damage the camera lens mount if handled incorrectly and create a huge hole in your financial planning ( even though virtual one).
the mistake i did here was to take out a lens on the day of travel and take it to the field directly , I should have got it one day prior , get used to it , probably get a better bag.
Lesson 1 : make sure you have the right tank for this big fish
Its huge , its heavy , its expensive and .....its not yours
The most important lesson , i cannot afford 80K lens hence i had to rent it out and i cannot afford to pay any damages if happens to it so for the next few days i carried it like a baby , i dont think i have cared so much for something so dearly before which doesnt even belong to me. Its very easy to damage such a huge instrument hence be always carefull.
Lesson 2 : You have a baby , its delicate , handle with care
Tripod needs to be a Hercules , mine is not
You need a proper wildlife photography tripod to support this monster , the one i have , suitable for landscape photography wont be of much use here. Unfortunately i found this out on day one , on field , I could still use it but carrying a large lens attached to a tripod in a jungle is not that comfortable , you need to get used to it which i wasn't hence i decided to trust my rock steady hands for the rest of the trip.
Lesson 3 : Invest on a good sturdy tripod like manfroto , its costs a fortune but you need to have one. Try it before and get used to carrying it everywhere
You need to be a spiderman , atleast with your reflexes
When the jungles are dense its very hard to spot a bird especially if its as small as ultramarine flycatcher , you need to think only bird and nothing else and your eyes will support you. Usually while trekking or while travelling you think of multiple subjects , a good spot for landscapes , safety , completion of trek , food hence your eyesight and focus keeps wandering. On day one while travelling in car Sudhir sir was able to spot birds at far, easily , i didnt even notice , but then i activated the wild life photographer mode and started thinking birds, birds and only birds , Voila !! I am a spiderman now , I could see even a smaller bird sitting in a thicket , i could feel its movement and could see farther.
Lesson 4 : Think about your subject only and eyesight will get better
Difficult life of a wildlife photographer
I was able to spot birds now and was able to get measure of 200-500 lens , things can only be easy here onward , burst mode on , let the machine gun start . Wasn't that easy though , zooming in and out from 200-500 , handheld is not that easy and takes time , enough for bird to fly away , focusing on Nikkor 200-500 is fast but finding a bird in forest canopy to focus is like finding a needle in a hay stack. But if you observe carefully , choose the early morning time and have enough patience , birds do have a pattern and most of them come back to same place again if you dont frighten them away , and once you know the places they would be visiting , you can be ready to shoot , its not easy as it sounds , with practice ( or with Sudhir sir to guide you ) you can get better.
However photographing birds in wild is not easy as capturing them in a studio , there are no galleries here or no baits placed , hence they can be anywhere , and its not easy to move in a jungle with tripod and heavy lens.
Lesson 5 : A jacket , a hat and a huge lens doesnt make you a wildlife photographer , its what you do with them does , practice , practice and more practice. No one gets it right at the first time
When you are in a jungle full of birds , you can have one sitting in a perfect light and other sitting in dark , changing settings to suit the lighting doesn't come that easy .
Background and Metering mode
I had set the metering mode to center weighted as i was capturing birds and i wanted the subject to be balance exposed , good thought works perfectly well for large or midsized birds , have tried it before but not quite for small sized birds.
We were sitting near a knot hole which ultra marine fly catcher was using as his home , a male , female and another male were center of our attraction and focus , they were less than few feet from us and we have been capturing them since last 2 hours. I was more than happy , at 500mm i could see birds eye clearly and was getting good images , and they looked good in lcd screen on my camera as well , not that difficult life i thought.
cut , scene 2 , sitting comfortably in pune , editing images on my laptop , what the hell !! why is histogram showing overexposed ?
center weighted metering shows exposure scale with respect to a center spot and you adjust your shutter and others to suit it but it doesnt care much about the surrounding conditions when using telephoto lens and when the bird is sitting in a canopy there are thousands of spotlights created by gaps created by leaves which can easily get overexposed . When your subject is moving so actively and you dont know how much time it will be there for you to capture , you just keep the shutter pressed and not think about above at all , you are so much engrossed in the bird that you even forgot to check the histogram and when you are clicking at speed of knots , its not possible to check every image as well.
Lesson 6 : Review your photo then and there only , refer to below images of a ultra marine male and chiffchaff , notice the spotlights in the background which are overexposed.
You have to be Mr 360 degrees and that to very quickly
In landscape photography you know that the scene is not going to change drastically and quickly hence you have ample time to set your exposure , iso , shutter right and then click at leisure , wild life photographers do not get that luxuary , here you dont choose your subjects , you dont choose the time and you cant choose your frame as well , here all is left to your subjects mood , and then there is not a single subject if you are under tree full of birds.
We were capturing ultra marine flycatcher ( yes still the same bird !!) and suddenly i noticed something moving near the tree trunk , i signaled it to sudhir sir , "Its a tree creeper , very rare , very difficult to spot due to its camouflage" , and here we turned all our attention to mr creeper , click click click ... job done , cut 2 , on your PC the background is overexposed because you clicked tree creeper with same settings used for ultra marine , because you knew little birdie is rare to spot you did not had time to review your camera settings.
Lesson 7 : Whenever you change your subject or your location always review your settings
Whats at the back matters more than that at front ...sometimes
when clicking with a huge telephoto , background tend to blurr but it needs to be in contrast with your birds color else it will interfere with your image , refer to below images and notice the disturbing backgrounds , take notice of whats in the background always , this is a key to great bird image.
Lesson 8 : Bird images look great in a contrasting backgrounds , adjust your positions so that you will get cleaner background
Anticipate , Be quick and Know your subject
On day 2 as well we were busy capturing ultra marine family , female was constantly moving in and out of the hole , she would fly away , grab a perfect grass leaf or a stick and fly in , build something and back out again , i wanted to capture her motion , capture her while moving out of her house , i spent almost 2 hours and different shutter and iso setting but in vein , she was too fast , finally at iso 4000 and shutter 1/4000 i was able to at least get the decent image and then i had to move away as it was getting dark. I had anticipated and shifted the focus point to the right this time , just before the actual hole as female was moving out in certain pattern and i had to make sure she would be in focus.
once back in hotel room i was still thinking as the image was not great , what i could have don better and then idea came in "Why i did not try 3D tracking mode ?" it could have worked or could have failed miserably as the bird was moving way to quickly , but i should have tried at least.
and then second lightning stuck from Sudhir Sir , "instead of female you should have waited for the male to fly in the house ,Females are usually very cautious and afraid whereas male are usually bold and flashy , he would have lingered for longer" then i realized i had seen male flycatcher moving in the house slowly the other day , but there was not time for another attempt.
Lesson 9 : Think before you click , you must need to have knowledge of your subjects and surroundings
Few good shots to end
And yes not everything was gloomy , few shots did come in well. At the end of the trip i realized its not easy as it looks and there is tremendous hard work put in for a single great image , its difficult to be creative in wildlife photography as you have no control over your subject and frame hence salute to those great soles who still manage to do that !!
NB: i am not a professional photographer , nor i claim to be an expert , these lessons are what i think they are, may not be technically perfect , if you have better suggestions do let me know , share your learning as well
Lesson 10 : Don't be complacent , keep practicing , keep improving
As birding was the only intention , I had to upgrade my photography kit, my trusted 55-300mm would not be of much use here hence i decided to rent out Nikkor 200-500 from Primes and Zooms , I now at least had proper wildlife photographers shoes to walk with.
This was the first time i was doing a dedicated bird photography attempt , I have love photographing animals with whatever limited gear i have but that has never been a primary focus until now so as expected i committed lot of mistakes and learned many valuable lessons. This is account of those mistakes and learning.
Its Huge and Its heavy..
My experience of using a large telephoto lens before this was limited to watching others use it from a distance so when i handled it for the first time i was intimidated by its size , the first thought which came into my mind was "How am i going to carry this ?" . My camera bags have been designed to carry lighter lenses , suitable for my road trips and treks , lighter and smaller the better. My current bags fits a camera , kit lens and 55-300 lens perfectly but this monster was too big for my bag , thankfully primes and zooms had given me a bag to carry it.
First thing i did is to go through YouTube videos of what not to do with large lens and tip i got was "handle the lens not the camera" , its sheer weight can easily damage the camera lens mount if handled incorrectly and create a huge hole in your financial planning ( even though virtual one).
the mistake i did here was to take out a lens on the day of travel and take it to the field directly , I should have got it one day prior , get used to it , probably get a better bag.
Lesson 1 : make sure you have the right tank for this big fish
Its huge , its heavy , its expensive and .....its not yours
The most important lesson , i cannot afford 80K lens hence i had to rent it out and i cannot afford to pay any damages if happens to it so for the next few days i carried it like a baby , i dont think i have cared so much for something so dearly before which doesnt even belong to me. Its very easy to damage such a huge instrument hence be always carefull.
Lesson 2 : You have a baby , its delicate , handle with care
Tripod needs to be a Hercules , mine is not
You need a proper wildlife photography tripod to support this monster , the one i have , suitable for landscape photography wont be of much use here. Unfortunately i found this out on day one , on field , I could still use it but carrying a large lens attached to a tripod in a jungle is not that comfortable , you need to get used to it which i wasn't hence i decided to trust my rock steady hands for the rest of the trip.
Lesson 3 : Invest on a good sturdy tripod like manfroto , its costs a fortune but you need to have one. Try it before and get used to carrying it everywhere
 |
| Thats how pros do it , Sudhir sir in action , notice the size of that tripod bag , my camera bag is lot smaller that that |
When the jungles are dense its very hard to spot a bird especially if its as small as ultramarine flycatcher , you need to think only bird and nothing else and your eyes will support you. Usually while trekking or while travelling you think of multiple subjects , a good spot for landscapes , safety , completion of trek , food hence your eyesight and focus keeps wandering. On day one while travelling in car Sudhir sir was able to spot birds at far, easily , i didnt even notice , but then i activated the wild life photographer mode and started thinking birds, birds and only birds , Voila !! I am a spiderman now , I could see even a smaller bird sitting in a thicket , i could feel its movement and could see farther.
Lesson 4 : Think about your subject only and eyesight will get better
Difficult life of a wildlife photographer
I was able to spot birds now and was able to get measure of 200-500 lens , things can only be easy here onward , burst mode on , let the machine gun start . Wasn't that easy though , zooming in and out from 200-500 , handheld is not that easy and takes time , enough for bird to fly away , focusing on Nikkor 200-500 is fast but finding a bird in forest canopy to focus is like finding a needle in a hay stack. But if you observe carefully , choose the early morning time and have enough patience , birds do have a pattern and most of them come back to same place again if you dont frighten them away , and once you know the places they would be visiting , you can be ready to shoot , its not easy as it sounds , with practice ( or with Sudhir sir to guide you ) you can get better.
However photographing birds in wild is not easy as capturing them in a studio , there are no galleries here or no baits placed , hence they can be anywhere , and its not easy to move in a jungle with tripod and heavy lens.
Lesson 5 : A jacket , a hat and a huge lens doesnt make you a wildlife photographer , its what you do with them does , practice , practice and more practice. No one gets it right at the first time
When you are in a jungle full of birds , you can have one sitting in a perfect light and other sitting in dark , changing settings to suit the lighting doesn't come that easy .
 |
| Himalyan woodpecker at job in a perfect spotlight |
 |
| Veridatar flycatcher |
Background and Metering mode
I had set the metering mode to center weighted as i was capturing birds and i wanted the subject to be balance exposed , good thought works perfectly well for large or midsized birds , have tried it before but not quite for small sized birds.
We were sitting near a knot hole which ultra marine fly catcher was using as his home , a male , female and another male were center of our attraction and focus , they were less than few feet from us and we have been capturing them since last 2 hours. I was more than happy , at 500mm i could see birds eye clearly and was getting good images , and they looked good in lcd screen on my camera as well , not that difficult life i thought.
cut , scene 2 , sitting comfortably in pune , editing images on my laptop , what the hell !! why is histogram showing overexposed ?
center weighted metering shows exposure scale with respect to a center spot and you adjust your shutter and others to suit it but it doesnt care much about the surrounding conditions when using telephoto lens and when the bird is sitting in a canopy there are thousands of spotlights created by gaps created by leaves which can easily get overexposed . When your subject is moving so actively and you dont know how much time it will be there for you to capture , you just keep the shutter pressed and not think about above at all , you are so much engrossed in the bird that you even forgot to check the histogram and when you are clicking at speed of knots , its not possible to check every image as well.
Lesson 6 : Review your photo then and there only , refer to below images of a ultra marine male and chiffchaff , notice the spotlights in the background which are overexposed.
 |
| ultra marine flycatcher ( male) |
 |
| ChiffChaff |
In landscape photography you know that the scene is not going to change drastically and quickly hence you have ample time to set your exposure , iso , shutter right and then click at leisure , wild life photographers do not get that luxuary , here you dont choose your subjects , you dont choose the time and you cant choose your frame as well , here all is left to your subjects mood , and then there is not a single subject if you are under tree full of birds.
We were capturing ultra marine flycatcher ( yes still the same bird !!) and suddenly i noticed something moving near the tree trunk , i signaled it to sudhir sir , "Its a tree creeper , very rare , very difficult to spot due to its camouflage" , and here we turned all our attention to mr creeper , click click click ... job done , cut 2 , on your PC the background is overexposed because you clicked tree creeper with same settings used for ultra marine , because you knew little birdie is rare to spot you did not had time to review your camera settings.
Lesson 7 : Whenever you change your subject or your location always review your settings
Whats at the back matters more than that at front ...sometimes
when clicking with a huge telephoto , background tend to blurr but it needs to be in contrast with your birds color else it will interfere with your image , refer to below images and notice the disturbing backgrounds , take notice of whats in the background always , this is a key to great bird image.
Lesson 8 : Bird images look great in a contrasting backgrounds , adjust your positions so that you will get cleaner background
 |
| grey winged blackbird |
 |
| Himalayan Goral |
 |
| Ultra marine flycatcher |
 |
| Ultra Marine ( Female) |
 |
| Long tailed shrike , comparatively better image with cleaner and contrasting background |
Anticipate , Be quick and Know your subject
On day 2 as well we were busy capturing ultra marine family , female was constantly moving in and out of the hole , she would fly away , grab a perfect grass leaf or a stick and fly in , build something and back out again , i wanted to capture her motion , capture her while moving out of her house , i spent almost 2 hours and different shutter and iso setting but in vein , she was too fast , finally at iso 4000 and shutter 1/4000 i was able to at least get the decent image and then i had to move away as it was getting dark. I had anticipated and shifted the focus point to the right this time , just before the actual hole as female was moving out in certain pattern and i had to make sure she would be in focus.
once back in hotel room i was still thinking as the image was not great , what i could have don better and then idea came in "Why i did not try 3D tracking mode ?" it could have worked or could have failed miserably as the bird was moving way to quickly , but i should have tried at least.
and then second lightning stuck from Sudhir Sir , "instead of female you should have waited for the male to fly in the house ,Females are usually very cautious and afraid whereas male are usually bold and flashy , he would have lingered for longer" then i realized i had seen male flycatcher moving in the house slowly the other day , but there was not time for another attempt.
Lesson 9 : Think before you click , you must need to have knowledge of your subjects and surroundings
 |
| ultra marine female flying out of her house |
Few good shots to end
And yes not everything was gloomy , few shots did come in well. At the end of the trip i realized its not easy as it looks and there is tremendous hard work put in for a single great image , its difficult to be creative in wildlife photography as you have no control over your subject and frame hence salute to those great soles who still manage to do that !!
NB: i am not a professional photographer , nor i claim to be an expert , these lessons are what i think they are, may not be technically perfect , if you have better suggestions do let me know , share your learning as well
Lesson 10 : Don't be complacent , keep practicing , keep improving
 |
| Barking deer , Kakad as known locally |
 |
| Eurasian Jay |
 |
| Mrs ultramarine |
 |
| Russets Sparrow ( Male) |
 |
| Russets Sparrow ( Female) |
 |
| white capped Redstart |
Nicely Written..Kedar..
ReplyDeleteGreat!!!
Perfectly captured
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteawesome clicks by the photographer, you are doing well. keep it up. i have visited do dham yatra last year for gaining a spiritual experience and now i am making plan for adventure trip. please suggest for it.
ReplyDeletenice post you have shared. explore one of the most colourful and fascinating place on earth varanasi and gain the powerful experience through visitVaranasi Tourism
ReplyDeleteThe place sound like an incredible place to observe wildlife life specially birds.
ReplyDeleteManchester airport cheap parking
Manchester park and ride
Well, spending Easter in a beautiful place where you have your family with you would be perfect.
ReplyDeleteTickets Depot 24/7
Tickets