Best Settings For Birds

[killwilly]

I have a Canon 450D and have just bought a Canon 55-250 IS lens, OK not the best lens for wildlife and birds in particular, but what would be the best settings for photographing garden birds, ie, ISO, aperture and shutter speed?

[nigel_b]

I put the ISO setting on manual according to available light. See what you get on 400 or 800. 1600 is probably starting to get noisy.

I'd shoot on aperture priority probably wide open to give me the fastest shutter speed.

The biggest hurdles seem to be getting close enough to get a big enough image on the sensor and stabilising the camera and lens.

[killwilly]

I think getting close enough with a 250 lens would be a problem, but it does have stabilisation that would help prevent camera shake. I suppose I could get a 2x converter, that might help. I do have a converter, but it's for my FD lenses and is a bit of a faff to use with Digital lenses, even with an FD-EOS converter.

[slimrbp]

IMO I am not sure using a 2x converter on the 55-250 would be a good idea, you would have to manually focus and I have found the focus ring on the 55-250 to not be the best for this and the loss of two stops of light will mean you need good strong light to maintain a decent shutter speed.
I used a 1.4 on the Canon 70-300 IS and the results were disapointing as the image quality was degraded, in some cases you may find cropping the image gives a better quality final result.

The settings you use are going to vary depending on the conditions.

The 55-250 IS is pretty effective so you don't need to worry too much about the 1/focal length for shutter speed but need to bear in mind subject movement so try and maintain a speed above 1/125 sec although the faster the better really but it is a trade off.

I normally do this by shooting in AV and adjusting either the aperture or ISO to get the required shutter speed.

With the 55-250 try and use an aperture of f8 if you can as I have found this gives much better sharpness than wide open with the lens (I have found even going a third of a stop to f6.3 gave an improvement).

I would recomend taking some test shots at the ISO you have so you can gauge the effect of noise on image quality, for example on my 400D I wouldn't have used anything above ISO 400 but as technology moves on this changes (and I am a self confessed pixel peeper).

You will often find Garden birds are more confiding than their wilder counterparts, for example with the 55-250 I have got some nice robin close ups as they are quite tolerant of people.

If you have feeders set up perhaps consider setting up a hide near the bushes where the birds alight on there way to the feeders. I have used a 'bag' hide in the garden with some good results and no comments from the neighbours yet

Bird photography always leads to a hankering for a longer lens I shoot at 420mm with a 300mm f4 + 1.4x combo and even then it often feels like you need lots more!

[Geoff F]

Yes I agree with Richard.

Don't waste money on a converter for that lens, particularly a x2 which only works well with the really expensive lenses.

And in addition to everything he said, I would add: a tripod will help; and manual focusing will prevent the camera from auto focusing on a nearby branch instead of a bird. If, like me, you find they move faster than you can focus, try only using the centre focusing point which will reduce the number of false focusing problems.

[nigel_b]

I think that's right, you are going to need to get close with a 250mm lens even with garden birds. Have an interesting background you can include so you arent too inclined to crop in too hard. To be honest even with a 420mm lens I find the small passerines difficult.

[killwilly]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'm glad I joined this forum, very friendly and most informative. Not quite sure whether I shall be able to offer much in the way of advise, but will be seeking it.

Alan