Tips for pelagic seabird photography - Nikon Z AF modes and Lens Choice

[Hypoleucos]

If one is used to the 500pf the 600pf is the same thing only a bit better imop. I love the 400f4.5 and if you are in a small boat and can get close it will do you well and it handles the 1.4 tc better then the 100-400 although it will work as well. If you are on a larger boat I would use the 600pf with greater reach and it also handles the 1.4tc well and I find on boats I usually need more reach not less. Having shot for years in the 400-500mm range it didn’t take long to adjust to the 600mm range although I do still struggle a bit at 840mm on fast subjects that are close. Also wind and waves makes a big difference As does light angle.

Thanks Macwalter, makes sense and I agree I need more time with the 600... Thanks for your help!

 

[Hypoleucos]

Bruce makes a good point about staying low. The reason that works is your backgrounds and out of focus areas have more separation and are less likely to pick up alternate subjects.

Whether that works depends on your ship. My ship was a bit taller above the water and we spent 6 consecutive nights on board. I found little consistency as to the location of birds relative to the ship - while some were viewed behind the ship, it was pure coincidence and just as many were viewed from each of the other sides. I ended up spending most of my time higher at the front and sides so I had a wider field of view.

Pelagic birding and bird photography trips are a lot of fun but very challenging. One technique you might use is to program a button to switch to DX. That gives you more ability to see the subject when it is distant and small in the EVF. More importantly - it's a quick adjustment you can make after finding the bird in the full frame viewfinder.

It's a lot better to have a couple of lens options than to have the wrong lens. It only took me a few hours on deck to decide my longest lens and a tripod were the wrong tools. I was struggling too much to find a bird in the viewfinder. I was very glad to have something shorter and wider - to allow me to photograph something rather than missing the only bird I saw in an hour long period.

We saw lots of birds near land - leaving the harbor and returning to the harbor. But those birds were relatively ordinary. The exceptional birds were sea birds that did not approach land.

One more idea if you are serious about birding. I used a Nikon GP-1 to capture GPS coordinates in every image. We had the ship's electronic log which recorded the GPS coordinates throughout our trip and could be used to match the time of the image to the location, but having the embedded coordinates in every file was a lot simpler. Of course, we were outside cell phone range so that tool was of no use.

I 100% agree that the best birds are out over the shelf I have resisted the idea of a DX button for a) fear of bumping it inadvertently (!) and b) thinking I can just crop post, but the better AF performance and finding the bird is another positive, something I will consider. My main issue is things too close for the longer lens to find when they are moving so fast. I use eBird on all these trips so that allows a GPS point which keeps things simple. Many thanks, Paul

 

[macwalter]

Getting low is always best but I find it hard when doing fast action as I’m not as spry as I used to be. Also on a boat of any size you may not be able to get to the water level easily. As for using DX I would not on a boat especially as you lose working area and you can always crop. I find one of the mid to wide AF areas to hand off to Auto AF often works great for birds over water and if the camera loses the bird in Auto AF it usually is too far away and I just let it go. I try to avoid too many flight shots with just a sky background but not always possible. I rarely use single point in this situation. I use bird subject recognition in most cases.

 

[rawla]

Thanks for that, on one hand good to know it is not just me, but also sad as fixing my technique is the easiest thing(!). Appreciate the response on FL as well, hopefully someone else has some proven methods, otherwise I'll try switching SD on/off more regularly.
Kind regards,
Paul

Pardon my ignorance. What is SD? And how will turning it on and off help?

 

[EricBowles]

Pardon my ignorance. What is SD? And how will turning it on and off help?

SD refers to subject detection. If you don't use subject detection, it's easier to pre-focus on a branch, an area of water, or something similar near your subject or near that distance. If you are using subject detection the camera will look for a subject somewhere - and it may not be where you intend to pre-focus or find a subject. I know with my equestrian work I can choose to focus on the rider's eye or the horse's eye, but if I want both in focus I need to turn off SD and focus on the rider's hands or the horse's shoulder.

 

[Hypoleucos]

Pardon my ignorance. What is SD? And how will turning it on and off help?

Sorry Rawla, as Eric said, I meant SD here. I normally put that on the joystick press custom button using focus recall. I had changed it to slow pan settings when shooting seabirds (e.g., f11,1/40), but think I'll go back to having it as SD and using that more regularly. It has been working so well on land that I find I rarely turn it off these days since the last firmware update.