(Click on the photo for a full-page view)
Working on the column, and editing the photo for publication, made me think a bit about the technical parts of doing this kind of photo.
First thing: it's best to try to get relatively low in relation to the subject. Shooting shorebirds from a high vantage point will almost invariably just show a brown back and the top of a head. Get low to emphasize the eyes and the underparts.
And the Cardinal Rule (not the bird) applies: Get close. Then get closer. Unless you're shooting in some sort of paradise, the subject is more important than where you're shooting. Personally, I don't care to see the name of the hotel or the sign on the fast-food joint in the background when I'm doing wildlife photography, so I crop with shoe leather -- I get as close as possible.
And speaking of cropping...I've been deeply in love with my Nikon D700 for quite some while. I think it may be the the best camera yet built for all types if shooting in all types of lighting. However...the D700 is a full-frame camera. And ful-frame cameras capture the full circle of light (24x36mm) that full-frame lenses produce. This results in a wide field of view, and that can make the subject appear to be somewhat small and far away unless you are using a very long telephoto lens and are quite close to your subject. In my case, using a 600mm lens - which is massive, incidentally -- close means within 12-15' of a songbird-sized subject. That's what it takes to get a compelling, tight shot. And that's not exactly an easy, every-day situation.
So I tired of waiting for the D300 replacement, and I just picked up a Nikon D7000, I did this for 2 reasons: (1)The smaller, lighter D7000 is far better for me to carry around, what with my tendinitis and my rotator cuff damage, and
(2) The smaller sensor (16x24mm, as opposed to the D700's 24x36mm) produces a 50% smaller field of view from any given lens. This "cropped" fied of view in the D7000 allows a 300mm lens to produce a field of view similar to what would be produced with 450mm on the full-frame camera, and my 80-400mm lens gives the field of a 120-600 (!!!) lens. This is a great equalizer. The cost of this? My super-wide 14-24 mm lens shows me what a 21-36mm lens would on a full-frame camera, and the 24-70/2.8 acts like a 36-105mm lens in terms of field of view. So I have to scramle to find another super-wide lens (Tokina 11-16?), and the samller-sensor cameras are not as good in low light and at high ISO's as are the full-frame cameras.
Bottom line? Smaller, lighter, less expensive compact-sensor cameras certainly have their place.Particularly in the case of wildlife photography, less (sensor size) can often be more.
