4) What metering you use for most of your bird photography scenes? How often you change metering and what are the differences between Canon and Nikon in metering capabilities?

I usually have my camera set to evaluative metering and adjust my exposure manually. I use manual exposure 99% of the time and adjust my exposure so that the histogram display shows that I have not clipped the highlight or shadow areas. Usually, when trying to get proper exposure for a bird photograph, I meter the background and dial in exposure compensation from there. Once I have a shot of the bird in the environment and lighting that I want, I check the histogram to make sure that all of the tones are captured correctly, then continue shooting. Occasionally, I will use spot metering when my subject is a very different color than the background and quite small in the frame, but I usually prefer to meter the background and compensate for the subject with my exposure settings.

Gull Tracks

Gull Footprints in Beach Sand, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia, USA, May 2007
Camera: Canon 1D Mark II N, Lens: 17-40mm f/4L USM at 40mm. Settings: 1/85s, f/16, ISO 200, RAW capture, full frame.
Good nature photography is all about looking for an appealing image. Often, this means noticing areas of patterns, shapes, and textures among a larger landscape. I loved the lines of the sand and diagonal of the footprints, so I positioned my wide angle lens parallel to the plane of the sand and used a small aperture setting to get all of the sand in the depth of field. I arranged my composition so that the lines moved diagonally through the frame and was careful to include evenly spaced footprints without cutting off any of the tracks. On my computer, I converted the image to black and white to place emphasis the shapes in the sand. Black and white presentations are great for compositions that emphasize textures and shapes.

The only times I do not use a manual exposure setting on the camera for bird photography is when the lighting is very variable, such as when shooting an animal that keeps moving from sun to shade or a bird that is flying between myself and a light source, or when I purposely need a slow shutter speed to capture motion blur. Then I will use either aperture or shutter priority mode and exposure compensation to expose the image correctly.

5) What lens do you use? If you are using multiple lenses can you give us the purpose of each and which one works best in what condition for you? Are you planning for an upgrade? What upgrades then? They say canon’s 100-400 F5.6L is the handiest birding lens and some say 400 F5.6L prime lens is the best flight and birding lens. What is your experience with canon and what do you suggest? If you use multiple lenses on the field can you explain why you chose one over another in different cases?

My current setup includes a Canon 1D Mark II N body, Canon 17-40mm f/4L lens, Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens, Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens, Sigma 150mm f/2.8 EX APO DG HSM Macro lens, Canon’s Mark II 1.4x and 2x Extenders, and Canon 580EX flash with a Better Beamer flash extender. I find that my setup is extremely versatile and expect it to suit me well for a long time.

I use the 300mm lens and 2x converter as my “long lens” for bird and wildlife photography. On a 1.3x crop factor 1D Mark II N, that gives me what is equivalent of a 780mm f/5.6 lens in 35mm terms. While many bird photographers use lenses of 500mm or more with teleconverters for the majority of their photography, I find that my setup is more than adequate when combined with good stacking techniques. The 300mm f/2.8L IS is an extremely fast and very sharp lens (many say it’s the best lens Canon makes) and it works wonderfully even when combined with the 2x extender, which causes the lens to lose two stops of light. The images I get from the 300 and 2x combination, especially when stopped down to f/8, look just as sharp and contrasty as most prime (non-zoom, single focal length) lenses do without converters. While the 300mm f/2.8 gets heavy after a while, it is light enough to handhold and maneuver fairly easily for flight shots, and feels very well balanced on my 1D Mark II N. The 1.4x converter is useful for flight photography because it slows down the AF less than the 2x converter while still adding length and magnification, and I find it easier to locate and track the bird with the wider angle of view that the 1.4x provides as compared to using the 2x converter. Rarely, I stack my 1.4x and 2x extenders on my 300mm f/2.8. This gives me more magnification, but the focusing with this combination is very erratic, so I must resort to focusing manually when using this combination. However, when stopped down to f/11 the combination is surprisingly sharp and works well for portraits when there is enough light to provide ample shutter speed.

The 70-200mm f/2.8L IS is another excellent lens and that wonderfully sharp and versatile as well. Zoom lenses used to be regarded as inferior to prime lenses, but now pro end zooms, such as the 70-200 IS, are just as good or better than many prime lenses. Canon also makes a 70-200mm f/4L IS zoom now, but I chose the f/2.8 version so it would be compatible with my teleconverters (the f/4 will work with converters as well, but causes one stop more light loss which slows down focusing speed). The 70-200mm range is great for environmental wildlife shots, photographs of larger mammals when you can get pretty close, and for intimate landscape and scenic shots. Adding a 2x converter gives me a 140mm-400mm f/5.6 zoom which is surprisingly sharp and decently lightweight, making it great for times when I need longer focal lengths and flexibility. I use this combination when hiking, as it is much easier to carry and a lot lighter than my 300mm f/2.8L IS. The image quality with this combination is surprisingly good, especially when stopped down at least one f-stop, and I prefer this combination to the 100-400mm f/5.6L zoom lens that Canon makes, because it is much more versatile and the optical quality is just as good or better.

My 17-40mm f/4L is my landscape and wide-angle lens. I have a pretty good copy, as it is very sharp in the center and quite sharp in all four corners. I do get some distortion when using the lens as the ends of its range, but this is usually only an issue in beach scenes where the horizon is a perfectly straight line. For most shots, it is quite an adequate performer, and I use it for landscapes, environmental shots of wildlife, and frame filling detail shots, like those of sand dunes or pebbles. I love wide angle shots of birds and wildlife, so when a subject is cooperative, I try to use this lens whenever possible to get photographs with a unique perspective and that show the subjects environment.

The Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro lens is the only non-Canon lens I own. I have used the Sigma 180mm f/3.5 Macro and Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro and find that the Sigma 150mm is the sharpest and best combination of reach, working distance, and weight. It is optically very good and much more affordable than the Canon 180mm f/2.8 Macro, and is also less heavy. I use my macro mostly for abstract and detail shots, as well as some flower and insect photography.