{"id":7201,"date":"2022-03-16T17:23:37","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T17:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7201"},"modified":"2022-03-16T17:23:37","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T17:23:37","slug":"bird-table-photography-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7201","title":{"rendered":"Bird Table Photography part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Robin on the bird table. Taken with a fish-eye lens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Collared Dove. Taken with a fish-eye lens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A fat pigeon. Taken with a fish-eye lens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Blackbird. Taken with a fish-eye lens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I couldn’t resist this cheeky shot…<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View of the setup from the side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A wider view from the side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A view from the front<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is a view from the rear. The third box hanging from the tripod houses the electronics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am quite pleased with the setup and are next going to experiment with different lenses and locations with the garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Bird Table Photography part 1”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,52,24,3,94,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-garden","category-nature","category-photography","category-staffordshire","category-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7201"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7218,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7201\/revisions\/7218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}