Shooting advice

Be patient

The best time to photograph all three of these birds is early in the morning because they tend to sing more just after dawn. Frustration will certainly play a part in your photography. The birds are more often heard than seen, especially if the reed bed is extensive. Patience is really important. The birds will seemingly taunt you by being constantly just out of shot. The trick is to wait. Every now and then, one will pop up a little higher on a reed and show itself, or hopefully come to the edge of the reed bed. Be ready. It won’t hang around, so have your camera switched on and the correct settings dialled in. Choose a low f-number, say f/5.6, a medium ISO (if it’s bright) such as 400, and try to achieve a speed of around 1/1000sec-plus. Make sure you do a test shot so that you can judge the exposure. Reed beds are pale in the sun and you will probably have to use a touch of exposure compensation.

Use centre AF point

Make sure you have the lens and camera set to autofocus, servo (or continuous focusing) and initially only use the central focus sensor as it’s the most sensitive. Once you spot a bird, quickly get the sensor onto it and fire off a few shots. If it stays put, you can fine-tune the composition by using a sensor either side of the centre. One aspect of reed bed work that will frustrate you is that the camera will often lock on to a reed stem in front of, or behind, the bird, or hunt badly. There is often nothing you can do, but moving slightly to one side might help. If the bird does stay put and the camera won’t lock on or hunts, try quickly turning the autofocus off and manually focusing.