Project 1 Swan vista
Iconic and majestic, the white swan is one of the most spectacular of our resident bird species, but you need some creative thinking to get an interesting shot.
Seek out a spot at your nearest lake where you can get low to the water level, and make sure you’re in position when the light is most interesting. Shoot early for a little mist lifting off the water, and use backlighting to get a pleasing ring of light around your subject. With all those white feathers, keep an eye on the camera’s histogram to make sure you aren’t clipping the highlights. If you are, dial in some negative exposure compensation in one-third increments until the highlight detail is retained.
As you’ll be shooting with a telephoto lens, you can photograph through foreground interest, such as reeds, to give your composition depth. This can cause issues with your autofocus, so pick a single AF point rather than all of them, and find a gap to lock focus on the swan’s head as it moves across, leaving active space in front. An aperture of f/5.6 will give you sharpness in the swan but a blurred background too.