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I work in psychology and I am generally very skeptical about statements describing human behavior. Personally, I believe that one of the reasons why the so-called rule of thirds works is because we've been trained to expect it. It's similar to how we are trained to look for elements of genre fiction or trained to expect certain structures in music. I think that there are no rules for composition but there are compositions that are more pleasing, and when we go in afterward to try to figure out why, we come up with ideas and rules but the human behavior itself (whether or not we like a photo) is not guided by rules and cannot be described 100% by rules. Yeah, I know that's a lot of words, but I paid a lot for that psychology degree lol

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This only applies to open spaces, not to birding in 75% of other environments like forests.

Maybe I missed it, but are shooting in manual mode?

Hi Tim I have an Olympus om-d e-m1 mark ii what’s the best lens to get for bird photography I have a Panasonic 75-300 but struggling to get sharp pictures

is it true what some people say? That it is more like 320mm at 400mm?

Nice tips…

As a remote sensing scientist, from a scientific perspective there are additive primary colors Red, Green, Blue which is what most digital camera sensors detect, and subtractive primary colors Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black which are pigments most color printers use. The primary colors of Red, Green, Blue at 8-bit radiometirc resolution can store 16.7 million color values in a digital image. The primary colors as light wavelengths are blue peaking at 450nm, green peaking at 550nm, red peaking at 650 nm. Pigments subtract out or absorb incoming white light. For example a yellow pigment absorbs the blue, reflecting back red and green light which humans perceive as yellow, a cyan pigment absorbs the red, reflecting back blue and green light which humans perceive as cyan, a magneta pigment absorbs the green reflecting back red and blue light which humans perceive as magenta.

Interesting and this makes sense to me. Is post-processing to blur the background, creating a negative space considered cheating?

Great tutorial. Direct and to the point.

Which Olympus cameras can do pro capture?

I would imagine the histogram is the most important thing to show as opposed to the photo?

What tripod are you using in this video?

The photo you have of the snowy owl looking at you straight on is amazing.!! The shallow DOF that so often accompanies wildlife photography never fails to trip me up many times. Let me ask , what would you have guessed your distance was from that owl in that photo? And I am Assuming that your 500mm is the full frame focal length…..

Thank you

Love the video, and how true about egotistical people and their cameras.

at 4:45 you ask us to give you 3 more places .... 1: Sax-Zim Bog in Minnesota for boreal bird species in the winter 2: wading bird rookery at the Ocean City, NJ Welcome Center for herons, egrets, and ibis in the late spring 3: Fort Pierre National Grasslands in SD for breeding Prairie Chickens and Sharp-tailed Grouse in the spring

Common sense…great video and excellent advise. I’ve been using one card slot cameras since 2005 and had one card failure. I guess camera manufacturers would like to sell more high end products 😅

It would be a dream if Flash worked with Pro Capture. At least, Pro Capture L. Yah, I know... would result in some dead flash batteries pretty quickly LOL.

manual shooting ftw :) that's the way to do wildlife.

Just be careful using the select method to cull... one wrong click somewhere and poof.. all those selects are gone!

Thats same I olso use! Ecelent!

Wow, this is an excellent video. It is very refreshing to approach bird photography from an artistic perspective. Thanks for video!

Great advice! Thanks!

Great video! Very nice photos! Excellent advice!

I had it over 2year never look back😊

I'm agonizing over these two lenses. I've rented them both, and they are both great. I almost exclusively shoot at the long end of a telephoto lens, and the 100-400mm gives me that extra reach. I don't so much care about zooming back, but I do care about the extra reach of the 100-400mm. On the other hand, the 300mm is so deliciously good, and it's better in low light since it's f4. I already have the 40-150mm f2.8 and both teleconverters, but putting the MC-20 on the 40-150 is....iffy. I've gotten some great shots that way, but I'm often frustrated that it gets softer and also that it still doesn't get close enough. The 100-400mm is about half the price, new or used. I'm a big believer in buying used gear, but you still have to fork over a lot of money for that 300mm f4 even used. I really want both lenses, but that's a lot of money and a lot to carry.

I would have thought the greatest variation would be in the three backlit eagle pictures. It seems to me that the spot meter off the eagle’s back would be the most accurate. Is that where you metered this image?

Great tips, right to the point. Thanks, Tim, and Happy New Year

No longer in your amazon store :(

I come from using FF for many years and then moved to OM about 6 months ago. I find it interesting that many people have little trust in the high ISO performance of the OM system. Here is a method used by many in Africa where we have early morning late afternoon, all kinds of weather. These settings are used for fast action BIF. Many will faun at the setting as most MFT users believe the expose the right gives you the best results. I challenge people to go try this, Aperture priority, shoot wide open F4 on my 300 f4, ev -1.7 even -2.3 if you have good light- and shooting birds with white feathers, ISO 800 min and we go as high a ISO 3200. The effect on the shutter speed is 1/8000 and much higher. I agree when we have good light, shoot stationary birds, set ISO 200 or 400 to "avoid" noise. Well today with DxO and Luminar DeNoise is part of the workflow. The question is why not optimise the camera's capabilities, if we operate between 200 and 800 ISO with SS of 1/80 to1/400 we never utilise the amazing capacity of these camera's that can shoot at ISO 1600 at negative ev and Shutter speeds higher that 1/8000. I resisted this philosophy for a long time until I went on a Bird safari trip in the Okavango Delta where action photography, early morning is action packed. The old dog learned new tricks and learned that the technology is much better than we give it credit for. Great Channel and I learned a great deal about the OMD EM1x.

Or stack 2 2.0's too ?

Very useful video. Thanks!

Great vids. I'm new to photographing birds. My whole mindset is pretty cynical. Climate, pollution, development , pesticides and habitat loss has giving me an extreme sense of urgency to document birds because I fear for the population decline. I don't know if I could wait 12 years for a shit lol.

Hey Tim,great tips,I am heading there in early December for a week.Understanding your position as a pro I ask if you would recommend lense selection.I am wanting to reduce my carry on weight limit. Thanks.

Just curious … how is this for Astro photography or astrography as it is popularly known? For moon and deep sky and planetary photos?

Very instructive sir, thanks

Very incomplete if not somehow incorrect explanation on the use of spotmetering. If you spotmeter on an area of the bird, you need to evaluate the tonality of that area, and compensate accordingly to record that area in that tonality..if it is middle tone, then you can shoot at the exposure the spotmeter tells you or at another equivalent exposure. Example, you want to photograph a brilliant white bird. You spotmeter meter the bird, and compensate by opening up 1 1/3 stop, to get details on the bird. Brilliant white reflect roughly 2 1/3 stops underexposure, light than middle tone, opening up by 1 1/3 stops results in 1 stop underexposure, exactly what you want, otherwise you will blow up the highlight, you won't get details on the brilliant white bird. Bottom line you have to evaluate the the tonality of the area you are spotmetering, and compensate (open up or close). You can also meter a middle tone area in the same light as the brilliant white bird, then this time you need to close by 1 stop from the spotmeter meter reading. In my opinion, spotmetering is in any kind of photography, the more accuate, consistent and repeatable accurate, of metering, provided that you are accurate, consistent on you evaluating the subject tone (middle tone, or by how much lighter or darker than middle tone).. of course you can decide to expose the way you want..as long as the results are what you want them to be. Correct exposure being a very subjective matter.. In your example, it happened that the bird is middle tone, so no compensation was needed with spotmetering, and the bird got properly exposed somehow..You cannot compare the spotmetering mode with the others that way..Sorry Sir.. Of course, tere is much more to say about the spotmetering mode, but it will be too long. For people who want to learn metering in birds photography, I strongly suggest to go on ebay, and buy the books of Arthur Morris, you won't be disappointed, I guarantee you..they are very cheap.. 1. The Art of Bird Photography 2. Bird Photography Pure and Simple (a field guide you can carry in your bag).. He has few other books too..but these above are a must. Arthur Morris is one, if not the premier North America's Photographer..He has few very interesting videos on CZcams.. A last point. I, personally use systematically Spotmetering in my photography, birds, mamals, etc. , and in my lanscape photography where I use the Zone system with spotmetering. Nothing wrong with other modes, but these modes necessitate a very good understanding of what your camera metering does, and this necessitate a very very long experience. Matrix, evaluative and partial metering works for you, then very good, that's the most important thing..Personally I don't want to guess on what these modes do, and eventually compensate. With spotmetering I am in total control of my exposure..Said all that, I commend the Author of this video for choosing this very important subject, and hope this video will sparks more discussions on this matter to the benefit of all of us..once someone masters the exposure techniques, the you free yourself, and will concentrate on making the pictures (choosing the subject, composition, quality of light, choosing the right lens, the right point of view, etc..I mean crafting the image) good luck to all of you, and enjoy your birds photography..

thanks man!

Well the 100-400 incl extender 1.4 is incredible,, and sharp ( new experience here ) ,,, em1 mkIII and M1x .. actually better combo than the nikon D800 and the Tamron 150-600, and lighter to carry

Kindly asking for support because I have problem with my pro capture H in OM-D M1 MK2. Pro capture H recording photos only when I push button to the end , in half way button not recording photos 😢 earlier was correctly please help.

That’s why I have a bird feeder. It’s much easier

That's cool! I shoot a retention pond by a local church. The birds are used to cars and people. It's a wonderful place to practice. I get Killdeer, Green Heron, Blue Heron, Mallards, Egrets, and Grackle. So much fun!