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Is photography a natural progression from birding? (1 Viewer)

So as the rest of us debated the finer points of 1000yd stint identification the photographer banged away on full auto taking endless shots of the only bird that was close enough to the hide, a red breasted merganser. When I got home I spent a while looking in books and on the net to clarify the mystery stint and whilst doing so I wondered what the chap was going to do with his 374 shots of the red breasted merganser...

I'm still wondering.

To be fair there's always two sides and a photographer might well question who in their right mind wants to bother debating the finer points of a 1000yard Stint.

I would think he'll have gone home and been enjoying looking through his photo's maybe tweaking them a little to get the best out of them and maybe sharing one or two of the best one's on the net or printing them out and probably deleting the poor ones which is surely no worse than worrying about the finer points of a distant little Wader.

Each to their own i suppose, personally I'd try and do both.
 
But apparently the clicking of the shutter was disturbing Mono

The clicking of the camera shutter is way down my list of "annoying things in a bird hide", I was merely expressing my lack of understanding as to why anybody would want 374 pictures of a red breasted merganser. It was a very fine specimen of its kind and very close to the hide, I admired it myself. I can conjure up the image of it now in my mind. But if I want to show some other folk what I mean by a "red breasted merganser" I don't need to show them my image of one. In the same way if I want to explain about my holiday to Florence my picture of the Duomo has no more validity than the one in the guidebook. But there are lots of my pictures of this summer Tuscany holiday that do show a context and uniqueness of situation that resonate to me and my fellow holidaymakers. It is the collection of countless, context-less images and the spending of vast sums of money to do it that I can't quite get my head round.

It will have to go on to the list along with the fanatical following of sports teams, Apple Macs and a belief in god as things I just don't get the fascination with.
 
Hi Mono,

Fair do's but if we all want to stand back and question the point of what others each spend countless time and sums of money doing in their lives then this thread will run and run.

I enjoy taking photgraphs, most of which end being deleted and who cares if those that don't never see the light of day ? Enjoy !

My shutter is much quieter than most of the background noise that emanates from an average bird hide !

Robin
 
I agree it doesn't really matter what people do with them, its fun taking photographs and when people take loads it is because they hope one will be the perfect shot, not because they want 300 pictures! I don't know about anyone else but I go through deleting loads of pictures every time I get back home.

The one negative impact of the massive boom in photography amongst birders must be on the professionals. Now that technology allows almost anyone to take great pictures it mist be really hard to earn a living from it.
 
It's not only fun taking pictures, but the post-processing can be fun also: tweaking the photo in Photoshop or whatever to get it just right can be very satisfying. Like Amerillo & most other "serious" bird photographers, I often take scores of pictures of the some subject matter & only keep the best one or two.
 
I was first only interested in the birds, then I wanted to photograph them to ID etc, now I am a photographer so yes, you are right when it comes to me.
 
There definitely seems to be a "them and us" thing about this topic.

There does. Why does serious birding and serious photography have to be considered mutually exclusive? They're not and if you enjoy both (I do) and aren't disturbing the birds or other birders then there's no harm in it. So what if someone takes 450 shots of a duck?
 
There was a chap with a DSLR and enormous lens

A case of lens envy I wonder?;) I used to feel the same until I came over to the 'dark side'. Also if you try a DSLR you will find out why folks take hundreds of photos of the same subject. You usually need to take a lot of shots to get a small number of 'keepers'. After all it is free so why wouldn't you? It is always amusing to see old school conventional SLR photographers fussing over a shot, then clunk......clunk.......clunk...'Oh its gone now' (and no sharp image).

I enjoy taking photgraphs, most of which end being deleted and who cares if those that don't never see the light of day? Enjoy! My shutter is much quieter than most of the background noise that emanates from an average bird hide!

Quite agree. I would prefer not to listen to inane prattle, folks stomping around etc in a hide. However, we could probably all do with being a bit more tolerant?

I enjoy birding, photography, atlassing and other life forms not just birds. I started birding as a child but recently I find myself drifting more into photography. There so many good reasons why, most of which have been mentioned on this thread already. I can definitely recommend doing a bit of everything!

Br, Mike
 
For me my birding was getting stale was getting too used to seeing the same birds, there was no direction.
Just ticking them off wasn't enthralling me.

Photography for me has reignited my passion for birdwatching. For example on a trip to great orme earlier this year instead of just observing them and 'ticking them off' from the lower quarry I went up to top quarry to get better pictures, I ended observing them more seeing them interact with each other on the cliff ledges from closer range, and exploring more of the area.

It was an overall much better experience it was like I was new to birdwatching again.

Also I take a fair amount of photos of the same bird, not quite 100s, and the last ones I take always seem to be the best.
 
Also I take a fair amount of photos of the same bird, not quite 100s, and the last ones I take always seem to be the best.

Its amazing how often that seems to happen, its always worth taking that one more especially when it costs nothing and can easily be deleted.
 
Being a 'birder' first and sliding into photography---I find this question right up my alley for I have often thought of it... I find myself now questioning my findings at times unless I have some sort of ID to represent it. I keep telling myself I have to trust my observation skills but at times, that just doesn't work. There are too many instances where birds do not follow the prescribed 'look' as listed in any bird book or, a bird is out of place locale-wise or...there are so many birds that one mixes up what they see.

When you think of it...I used to just use a pair of binoculars but now the camera + lens takes the place of the binoculars and does so very well.

Photography has led me to transition to digiscoping which I almost like more. This is more of a half-way between pure binocular birding and camera+ lens. Digiscoping still allows for images but certainly not as many as you can snap off using a camera+lens. Digiscoping allows a bit of slowness into the affair of birding, equaling that of binoculars, if that makes sense.

Good thread...
 
For me my birding was getting stale was getting too used to seeing the same birds, there was no direction.
Just ticking them off wasn't enthralling me.

Photography for me has reignited my passion for birdwatching. For example on a trip to great orme earlier this year instead of just observing them and 'ticking them off' from the lower quarry I went up to top quarry to get better pictures, I ended observing them more seeing them interact with each other on the cliff ledges from closer range, and exploring more of the area.

It was an overall much better experience it was like I was new to birdwatching again.

Also I take a fair amount of photos of the same bird, not quite 100s, and the last ones I take always seem to be the best.

I’m with you there Steve. Good post. Going out with a camera has given me too a renewed interest and drive to get out into the field again and see familiar birds through a ‘different eye’.

I also feel the ‘them and us’ thing, and really can’t understand why some feel so upset that others can enjoy birding in different ways to those defined by their own limited view of the world.

It’s also ironic that many of the ‘best’ birds in the last few years have been put in the public domain by ‘photographers’, even if they didn’t necessarily know what they were looking at when the photo was taken (Eastern Crowned Warbler, Long-billed Murrelet are examples, I could go on...) but you won’t hear many complaining once these birds are safely on ‘the list’, no matter who found them, or how.

Perhaps the people who have ‘photographer issues’ are the same ones that routinely come in after a day in the field, fire up the laptop and trawl the forums for photos of the most recent rarity (that they had un-tickable views of) just to find out what it really looked like! And how many would complain if the birding mags didn’t arrive monthly on their doorstep, complete with the latest batch of rarity snaps, illustrated ID articles and the like?

Like it or not, we are in the middle of a photography revolution which has put the ever increasing power of digital cameras into the hands of almost every ‘birder’, and long may it last!

Mike’s right though, we all need to be a bit more tolerant.

Steve
 
I started birding in 1979 and got my first SLR in 1985, took a few rarity pix (which bring back happy memories of my mis-spent youf), but I did get to a stage where I realised that I wasn't actually looking at the birds i was photographing (to absorbed with getting "the" shot). I used photographs to document birding expeditions in the early 1990s but then realised that to do things seriously I needed very expensive gear that would weigh me down, and whilst i continued an interest in photography I gave up my telephoto lens and focused on travel/landscapes/people.

Then the digital photography revolution came along and the ability to take much better photos at a bearable cost came along and I now use a DSLR and telephoto to illustrate my blog and to aid identification (I find that I rarely use a scope these days and a magnified digital image can often help to confirm a difficult ID).

I've also donated some interesting images to BirdLife, who have included a few in their publications, and recently I've been offered payment for an image.

I'd say that whilst photography can be a valuable progression in your relationship with birding, it should not replace note taking (although it seemingly does for a lot of people - myself included I'm ashamed to say).
 
I dont think its a natural progression but its pretty easy to combine the two hobbies or passions. I birded first but tried to get pictures of birds as soon as I got my hands on a camera. Lacking the expensive equipment necessary to get close enough for good bird pics, however, meant that less time was spent on photography while birding.

With the advent of the digital camera though and the fact that I could hold it up o my scope and take as many pictures as I wanted, I do some digiscoping just about every time I go birding. I find it just as exciting as birding and far more challenging.
 
With the advent of the digital camera though and the fact that I could hold it up o my scope and take as many pictures as I wanted, I do some digiscoping just about every time I go birding. I find it just as exciting as birding and far more challenging.

Digiscoping is challenging..... and it is birding. I do both birding with a camera/lens but also with scope/point and shoot. I have to say that with camera/lens my focus goes more to 'settings' and taking a ton of shots while with digiscoping it is more about the bird and following it, waiting for it ....to get a shot. A bit of difference although both have their value in birding. I think if I was a better photographer...I wouldn't feel I was concentrating on the 'camera settings' as much, I suspect.
 
I would love to take up photography if I could afford it... used to be an avid photographer when I was younger, with my trusty old Nikon (all manual, no fancy automatic stuff there!), although I very rarely took photos of birds. Stopped using it because of lack of money... simply couldn't afford to develop the pictures anymore.
I do however have a small compact camera (Panasonic Lumix TZ7) which I sometimes put up to the scope for some pics. Great fun, although I'm usually happy with the pic if it's possible to identify the bird. I don't have very high standards set for myself. Mainly carry it around just in case I see something I'm not sure of, or something rare or something like that.
Would dearly like to have a DSLR, but on the other hand, it would be more to carry. The great thing with my amateur digiscoping is that the camera fits in my pocket... ;)
 
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