Birding Photography Blog – Capturing the bateleur

Posted on Fri September 2, 2016.

This great birding photography image of a bateleur eagle was captured by well known birding photography expert, Albert Froneman.  The bateleur has often been spotted drinking at the waterhole where the sunken hide is located, but always seemed to stay away when our birding photographers where spending time at the hide!  Even though Albert captured this image from outside the hide, we are thrilled to have proof of the bateleur’s affinity for the waterhole at last!

Birds of prey pose specific challenges for birding photography enthusiasts.  Here are a few tips on how to shoot pin-sharp pictures of birds of prey, by Jeff Meyer.

Aperture priority
Get out of auto mode and switch to aperture-priority as this will put you in control of your depth of field. An aperture of f/4 or f/5.6 will blow out the background for a stronger shot, meaning you can shoot at a faster shutter speed and keep up with a restless subject.

Stop the shakes
Crank up your shutter speed to at least 1/500 sec (we chose 1/1000 sec) to avoid camera shake and make sure you can keep up if there’s any sudden movement. We chose an ISO of 400, but remember that you can always increase it if conditions change.

Continuous auto focus
Switching to continuous auto focus means that the camera will keep focusing once the shutter button is half-pressed. This is perfect when shooting pictures of birds of prey, as they’ll never stay perfectly still – your camera’s focus will track them until you’re ready to take the shot.

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For more info on our Birding Photography Packages at Indlovu, click here.

To find out more about our next Wildlife and Birding Photography Course at Indlovu, please contact Louisa at Lodge: +27 (0) 15 383 9918 or email: [email protected]