The Most Important Element Of Bird Photography

Bird photography is challenging to say the least. Birds usually are constantly on the move and they rarely pose for you like you wish they would. Add to that the fact that you can't control outdoor lighting, only try to work along with it, and the fact that birds are often skittish and wary to begin with, and you can see why bird photography is not easy.

But that is also part of the allure. That's because it takes great amounts of patience, planning, knowledge of your subjects, and willingness to go wherever they are that translates into bird photography skills that produce great images. Of course, anyone can get run-of-the-mill, ordinary shots of birds. But if you want bird photos that really stir interest and are engaging, you need the skills to do be able to do that.

One of the most important factors to understand when photographing birds is that of all the elements of the image that will be important, and there are often many of these, by far the most important is the eyes of the bird. Truly great bird photographers recognize this and if you examine their work you will see clearly that the eyes get preferential treatment. They are almost always razor sharp even if other parts of the bird are slightly out of focus.

There is just something about our desire as beholders to look into the eyes of the bird and see it clearly. Again, this is going to take effort because birds don't stand still very often. Their head is usually a moving target that slips in and out of focus depending on which way they are looking. This means that you have to keep readjusting focus all the time to keep those eyes sharp.

For this, I like to use the spot focusing feature on my camera that lets me focus on a very small part of the image in the middle of the viewfinder. Once I place the eye in the center of the viewfinder, I lock the focus on the bird's eye by half-pressing the shutter and then recompose the image in whatever way that I want. This is fine as long as the bird stays in that general position. But when it moves or changes the direction it is facing, I have to go through that whole process again, often many times before everything is in place to press the shutter the rest of the way and take the shot. It's a lot of work, but very rewarding when done properly.

Here is an example of keeping the eye in sharp focus even if the beak or other parts of the bird are slightly out of focus:

What is the element of this photo that grabs your eye first?

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