Bird backgrounds

Q I have a bridge camera that has helped me get into wildlife photography, but my backgrounds are messy. How can I solve this?

There

are lots of things you can do to help here, Keith.

Let’s see if we can go through them one by one.

First, think about aperture. While you might want to get as much of the bird sharp as possible, an aperture such as f/8 or f/11 will also be ensuring the background detailer is clearer. So

I’d suggest shooting on the longer end of your telephoto and restricting the aperture to f/5.6 or even f/4. Just make sure your focus is precisely on the bird’s eye when you do. This will help you to make sure the background is more out of focus.

Second, try to choose less ‘fussy’ backgrounds. Bushes and trees can be perfect for this. Shoot from a low position so they are as distant as possible from the subject.

The other option to try when the background isn’t great is to crop really tight on the subject and avoid it as much as possible. The rule when cropping tight is just to look like you mean it! Don’t half-crop: compose so it is clear that you’ve gone for a portrait of the subject and intended to lose parts of it.

Use my portrait of a duck (left) as an example. It’s really a mallard ‘head & shoulders’ but I’ve cropped in tight enough to make sure everyone knows this was an intentional decision.