Feathered Friday ~ Photos and Tips!

Hey folks, welcome to another Feathered Friday, hosted by yours truly, @keithboone.

If you love photographing birds as much as I do, I just know you have some great photos to share. To participate in #FeatheredFriday and receive an upvote & resteem, please follow these simple steps:

• Make your own post and use the tag #featheredfriday
• Comment below with a link to your post - This will get you a lot of extra exposure from the other participants. If you don't do this, I may accidentally miss your post.
• Consider using the #birding tag which will also get some more eyes on your post.

Here's some of my own work. All photos were taken by me with a Nikon D750 camera. If you participate in this challenge, please make sure that you post only your own photos. This week I will try to give some commentary and photography tips throughout the post. Let me know if you find any of this helpful - or if you think I should just shut up and show you the pictures!

A pair of Canadian Geese on a pond. 1/1600s f/6.0 ISO1000 420mm

I photographed this pair of Canadian Geese in Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, BC. One of the best tips for shooting birds on a pond is to get down low. Lower than this would have been even better. The point is to get down to eye level which helps to establish a connection with the subject. Try it with kids or dogs. Get down on the floor at their level and see how much it improves your photos.

Great Blue Heron. 1/2000s f/6.3 ISO640 550mm

Catching birds in flight is my favourite type of photography. Keep the shutter speed high if you want to freeze the action. Slower speeds can also work if you enjoy a little blur in the wingtips. This shot was taken at 1/2000 second which will generally result in sharp photos. The above photo as captured at the Esquimalt Lagoon Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Victoria, BC.

A pair of American Wigeons. 1/1600s f/4.8 ISO2000 135mm

Here's another shot from Beacon Hill Park which is an awesome location for bird photography. This photo was taken at 1/1600th second which might be a little slow for Ducks, which generally flap their wings very quickly. I will usually shoot a little faster than this. Notice the slight blur on the wingtips. Of course, you could also choose to accentuate the blur for artistic reasons if you like by shooting at a slower shutter speed. Experiment and see what you like!

Bald Eagle. 1/1600s f/6.0 ISO1400 380mm

This Bald Eagle was captured in Tofino, British Columbia. I've been talking a lot about camera settings and I can imagine many of you are thinking this is complicated stuff. I know most people shoot in a semi-automatic or fully automatic mode and that's fine. Cell phone cameras are fine, whatever camera you have with you is the best camera there is! When you're ready to take it to the next level, however, I really recommend learning to shoot in manual mode. I've been shooting for years now but it's only over the past few months that I switched to full manual for all my photography. Again, let me know if you're interested in this stuff - I'm considering doing a series of posts on the subject if there is any interest.

Robin. 1/200s f/8.0 ISO125 300mm

A Robin in a Gary Oak tree on top of Mt. Tolmie, in Victoria. I liked the soft colours of the background sky and the lichens on the tree. Robins are supposed to be a sign of spring but the light in this shot just feels like winter to me. I checked the date and sure enough... January 25th, 2016.

Canada Goose. 1/1600s f/5.6 ISO100 300mm

Here's a Canada Goose in flight, captured at the bird sanctuary in Esquimalt. I often have trouble aiming and staying on-target long enough for the camera to lock focus. There's not much you can do about this except practice. I throw away at least 95% of all bird photos, but when I get a good one, it feels like it was worth the trouble! Oh, here's another tip... Crop your photos! No matter how long a lens I have, I always wish I was closer. I guarantee that every bird photo I've ever posted has been cropped to make the image bigger.

Killdeer. 1/1000s f/6.3 ISO400 600mm

Here's the last shot for this week. Thank goodness, I was running out of things to say! This Killdeer was exhibiting paratrepsis, also known as a diversionary display or anti-predator display. The basic idea is this: the bird makes a lot of noise and may even pretend to be injured in order to draw your attention away from the nest. Killdeer are the champions of this behaviour. These birds are well camouflaged and blend right into their environment... except for when they climb up on a rock and jump around and squawk like crazy! I got down as low as possible to capture this bird in silhouette against the water. Notice the eye, which is placed on a thirds-point intersection in the composition. The nest was about forty feet away to the right. Want to hear more about stuff like this? Let me know in the comments, thank you!

Thanks very much for reading. Now let's see your pictures, people!