More Photo Tips Through The Window

I was asked in yesterday's comments, for more tips for photographing birds through the window. Many of these apply to photographing birds not through the window also, but here they are:

* Put up bird feeders or a bird bath to lure the birds in, then put up a perch up outside the window. Ours is a piece of driftwood we placed in a planter on our deck, which is visible out the window. The Blue Jay above is on it. You can also change the perch material periodically to provide different photo ops.

* Make sure you take the photo when there is full sunlight on the bird, preferably. The sun should be coming from behind you, not in front of you, so the bird is not backlit and any spots on the window made obvious.

* It helps if the bird is fairly close to you, so it is covering at least a third of the frame. Shoot at a low ISO like, 100 or 200 and keep the camera steady with a tripod, or support. I lean my elbows on my desk to steady the camera and I have a Canon 300 mm image stabilized lens.

* and, oh yes, a squeaky clean window helps.

Photo © Lillian Stokes, 2007