I have just reworked my setup for bird table photography and have been experimenting. First, I have tried using a cheap, fixed-aperture, fish-eye lens close up (about 1ft/30cm):
Why do this rather than use a telephoto lens like most other photographers use? I like to show the context with many of my photographs. With this you can see it is a bird table, located in the garden, with the greenhouse behind it. This is not an anonymous location with a completely blurred background that gives no context to the image whatsoever. So here a few more taken over two days:
To take these photos I used a mirrorless camera with a cheap, fish-eye, ‘pancake’ lens that has a fixed aperture of F8. The camera was controlled by a system triggered by a PIR detector (like you get on many home security lights). Here a some photos of the set-up:
Above, you can see the pancake lens under cover and the box on the left is the PIR detector. I use plastic food boxes to provide a measure of protection from the weather (and from the birds). The camera is powered from a 12v lead-acid battery hung under the tripod. The PIR is protected by a cut-down tube and is housed in a small food box. Both tripods are old ‘car boot sale’ type of second-hand equipment – I don’t worry about leaving these out in all weathers.
I am quite pleased with the setup and are next going to experiment with different lenses and locations with the garden.