Bird Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots

2. Basic Camera Settings

Getting to Know Your Camera

There are so many buttons and dials on today’s digital cameras that it can easily become overwhelming at first. There are excellent books (from Peachpit’s “From Snapshots to Great Shots” series) on all the buttons and dials of each camera and what they do. In this chapter, I’m going to cover the specific settings that I feel are important to getting the best performance out of your camera when photographing birds. Refer to your camera’s instruction manual to see if your model offers the following features and how to optimize your own camera for photographing birds both at rest and in flight.

ISO 1000

1/800 sec.

f/8

600mm f4 VR lens

Getting to Know the Buttons and Dials

Some of the key adjustments, ...