Camera and Lenses
Lesson 3 from: The Art of Photographing BirdsFrans Lanting
Camera and Lenses
Lesson 3 from: The Art of Photographing BirdsFrans Lanting
Lesson Info
3. Camera and Lenses
Lessons
Introduction
04:19 2Introduction to Location Shoot
01:45 3Camera and Lenses
06:09 4DSLR vs Mirrorless
12:38 5Field Trip 1
23:22 6Getting Close To Birds
13:41 7Camera Settings
06:57 8Settings For Creativity
07:16Point of View
06:19 10Bird Portraits
14:32 11Birds in Flocks
32:40 12Birds in Flight
15:56 13Field Trip 2
11:04 14Behavior
19:43 15Birds in Landscapes
10:56 16Field Trip at Sunset
14:12 17Impressions
08:13 18Qualities of Light
01:46 19Birds as Designs
03:23 20Birds and People
11:08 21Locations
14:15 22Student Critique
1:07:35Lesson Info
Camera and Lenses
bird photography can be gear intensive. It takes long lenses, long lenses take heavy tripods. And you can see, um, or extreme case here where I've added two strokes with a bracket to the to the Rigas Well, and that enabled me to make this photograph of is in Africa. These birds are called Creeley IStar small song birds that congregate by the thousands. And I wanted to add a little bit of, ah, a kick light for my strokes and then the examine the image more closely. You'll see that it led to catch lights in the ice, and I freeze demotion of the wings a little bit. But at the same time, the ambient light creates a blur. I like that kind of mixed lighting, and I'll show you some or examples of that later on. But back to the gear itself. We're gonna roll a short video that talks about the cameras in the lenses that I use at the moment in bird photography. Now I should explain that I used Nikon gear, but of course, there's equivalent cameras and lenses across all the other brands. Better use...
cannon over to use Sony. Nobody you use Olympus So let's run that video. There's not one camera and lens combination that is perfect for all bird situations. Sometimes I use wide angle lenses when I can get very close to birds. But in this course I need a long lens. That's five got a 600 F four here, and I can add an extender to doubt that turns it into a 900 millimeter lens. Often the birds are too far away to capture full frame. Without a long lens like this, I've got Nikon Stop it, a line camera D five mounted on that lens, and that gives me a high frame rate. This is a professional rake. It requires a heavy tripod because otherwise you can't keep it stable. But sometimes it's better to have more flexibility. And that's when I use the zoom lands. This is Nickens new 1 80 to 400 millimeter lens, and it's got a built in extender. So I consume it very quickly from being a 1 80 to becoming a 600 millimeter lens, and then it's got the same length. Has this one here? I've got Nickens D 8 50 mounted on that, both of geese. I'm gonna be demonstrating during the course. I've been using DSLR cameras for years, but Merrill ist cameras are up in coming. This is the latest addition to my arsenal. It's a mirror list camera, which is much more compact, and I've got a 500 F 56 lens connected to it, and it's super lightweight. I can use this hand held, and that makes a big difference when you want to do action. Photography will be using this when the birds are flying past us, and that's much harder to do when you've got a big lens mounted on a tripod. This is the gear I'm using. But during this course, I'll be sharing Maju principles in bird photography that you can apply no matter of what kind of camera and what can a lens you use. We'll also be approaching birds by car using car, says moving blinds. And then you do that. There's no room for try pots. I'll be introducing you to other ways to stabilize your camera and you're in a car. It doesn't matter what camera you use, what Lynch you apply. I want you to connect with birds no matter where you are all right. That's a lot of information in a couple of minutes, and I imagine there may be a few questions about this. But before I handed over to you, let me just make a comment because you heard me talk about Ah Lens converter or a telly extender. Nickel makes an extender that is a 1.4, but in order to be really correct, I should have said it turns my 600 millimeter lens into not quite a 900 millimeters, but it rolled off the tongue more easily to say it's a 900. There's also two times converters, but, um, a little bit reluctant to use those very much because they really decreased optical quality of the lens. You're using eso the same thing. But that 1.4 converter of and I talked about that new Nikon lens of 1 80 to 400 millimeters zoom lens. It doesn't quite give you 600 millimeter lens, but close to it now. I hope you're not too intimidated by the gear that the shouting at video cause that's all top of the line professional stuff and in a case, it at one long zoom lens they'll set you back quite a few $1000. But other more compact alternative stood out as well that are just as good for most of your applications. But I'd like to hear back from you. What is your response to what I just showed in the way of cameras and lenses? Any questions or comments? Go ahead. Your hyung my, I was. I was curious if their professional bird photographers out there using medium format cameras. That's a good question on. I never use medium format cameras and lenses because I want to be more compact. I want to be mobile. And in my opinion, you're the current models Nikon, Canon and Sony cameras. The sensors are so good that I don't need that extra number of pixels that I can get from a medium format camera and the cost alone and the additional weight is really to me. It's an encumbrance
Ratings and Reviews
Carl Bergstrom
I was privileged to be in the studio audience for Frans Lanting's Art of Photographing Birds course, and it was amazing. The morning was a perfectly pitched lesson on the technical aspects of bird photography, intermixed with Frans's own photographs and excellent videos of him working in the field. The afternoon focused more on bird behavior, composition, and artistry, and was even more delightful. If you know Lanting's photography you already know about his ability to find unusual perspectives on the world. What really shone through in the class was his love for wildlife and especially for birds. His knowledge of natural history is as amazing as his photography, and I loved the message that to take great photographs of birds, one needs to understand them and their behaviors. I've admired Lanting as a photographer for decades. Today I learned that he is an equally talented teacher. I'll be purchasing all of his CreativeLive courses. Thank you, Carl Bergstrom
Marie Gessle
Amazing class! Mr Lanting is charming and full of knowledge about birds and of course photography. In every moment of this course you can see his great passion and love for these flying creatures. The course is full of tips for photographers who want to start capturing moments of birds life. Awesome!!!
André Audet
Great class, very inspiring. Packed with great tips and beautiful imagery. Frans is a great instructor. I enjoyed watching this class a lot, and will watch it again!