One day while photographing on the beach I wanted to do something different. I saw some birds near some tall grass and I realized it would make a nice foreground. So I walked over, sat down so that the grass was in front of me, and just waited.
The point was so that I could include a bit of the “landscape” in the shot, along with the bird. So often I get caught up just trying to shoot really tight shots of wildlife. And don’t get me wrong… that’s probably my go-to shot and my preferred photo that I personally like seeing.
But, at the same time, sometimes it gets a little monotonous. Especially when you’ve photographed the same thing over and over again. For me, it was challenging just watching and waiting. I sat there for a solid 20 minutes waiting for the bird to fly. Because the wind was at my back I had a pretty good feeling it would fly toward me, and I could get an interesting shot. Plus, the sun was mostly to my back so the light was decent.
After about 20 minutes I was getting kind of bored. But then I got lucky, and the bird decided to jump and fly away – and that’s when I captured this shot.
I once heard photos like this called “Birdscapes”. A mix of bird photography and landscapes. I encourage you to give it a try if you haven’t done it yet. Find a nice setting and then try to work a shot where you can get some wildlife in it. My shot is still pretty tight. I see lots of wider photos with more landscape and they look great as well. But I still like a semi-close-up shot of the wildlife so I decided to crop this one tighter. Close enough to really see the bird and the action, but far enough to see some of the surrounding area. As you probably know, there is no “right way” to do it. Experiment, have fun and I bet you come away with something a little different and very sharable.
Gear, Settings and Post Processing
I used my Sony Alpha 1 with the 200-600mm lens for this one. I had my camera set to AF-C. I was using Zone Auto Focus (center position) and the Bird Eye feature was engaged at the time.
I was on Manual Exposure mode at f/6.3, Auto ISO which was at 800, and 1/3200th sec.
Post processing was done in Lightroom for exposure, cropping, color and toning corrections and a quick trip to Topaz DeNoise AI for some noise reduction. (more on Topaz here)
As always my editing is covered in my Wildlife Editing Secrets Course. Also, you can find links to all of my gear, computers, hard drives, etc… over on the Gear page which can be clicked on in the top menu (or just click here). And it’s always appreciated if you use the links on that page (even if you’re not purchasing that specific item) when buying anything. It doesn’t cost you a penny and it’ll help me out a bit ?
And if you want to learn more about actually photographing the birds, check out “Matt’s Guide to Bird Photography”. People absolutely LOVE this course!
This was great information. I am79 yrs old and getting very arthritic and don’t know how much I will be able to get out much, but I loved your bird pictures and know a of two really good spots I would like to try. If I could find a strong person to assist me, I would do it .
Your suggestion appeals to me. Also, I tended to shoot tightly and sought anything unique yet intriguing to photograph. I’m very impressed with how well you captured the white detail with auto iso.
Beautiful shot!
Great shot. I like the bird in action plus a glimpse of where it started before flying. To me it gives the photo a “grounded” look. Thanks for giving me something new to try. Just finished the No Light…Vol. 3 and was a great addition to Vol. 1 & 2. Thanks again for all your help. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.
Neal
Before Robert Bateman, pretty much all bird art and wildlife art in general looked like the work of John James Audubon (https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-james-audubon). There was a bird, a deer or whatever and the bird might be sitting on a branch… The work is well done, amazing detail, but there’s no life to the work. Robert began painting wildlife in situ and in some of his works the wildlife is only a tiny part of the image.
If you’re interested in birdscapes, I’d suggest starting there because all of this life LIVES somewhere. A part of your challenge is to be able to portray, “Why here?” ?
I like your idea. I tend to shoot tight too, and was looking for something different but interesting. You caught excellent detail in the egret’s feathers – did you use EV (minus) to avoid blown highlights or just PS ?
Hi Ernie. I didn’t. I just use Auto ISO and that tends to work great on just about everything unless there’s significant backlighting.
A nice photo, Matt. However, I am distracted by the foreground grass and DOF. Some of the grass seems to be fairly well focused, but the closer stems are blurred. All due to DOF, of course, but the combination of in- and out-of-focus foreground is distracting.
Some creative editing might help. Perhaps trying to sharpen the closer foreground a bit, or even blurring the grass that is already sharp. The first option brings it all closer to focus, while the second option would go in the other direction. Either way the intent is to make it all bit more uniform, hence less distracting.
Also possible here to take a focused shot of the grass from same vantage but no bird, and drop in a foreground as you do with changing the sky. I sometimes use a focus-merge app that works like HDR merge, but with multiple images set to slightly different focus points. Sure wish this was built into Photoshop and LR.
Hi Russ. We can agree to disagree. The depth of field is exactly what I was going for and what I love about it. Like the way our eyes see life, the blur and sharp areas signify depth. Something very hard to convey in a photo and something that DOF does beautifully here. It’s like you’re peeping through the grass from behind something and observing. Having sharp grass would not make this photo any better, and would actually make it worse. Thanks! 🙂
I agree with Matt, sorry and not taking sides here. But if you look closely at the grass you will see that the only grass that is in focus is at the ‘back’ of the foreground and closer to the bird where the camera is focused. It stands to reason that this lie of grass would be in focus because it is basically on the same focal plane as the bird.
Love how you managed to nail the white detail with auto iso
Thanks Bob. Wish I could take credit for it… The camera did it all though. I just pressed the button.