ABA Blog

DSLR Bird Vids

I'm easing myself into a new realm of bird photography, dabbling with videos to supplement my core interest of shooting stills.  Three primary factors influenced my decision to try this.  First, I enviously watched my buddies Brian Sullivan and Chris Wood shooting video with their DSLR rigs and thought it would be fun to try it.  Second, I finally upgraded to a DSLR body capable of video (putting my trusty Nikon D300 into a backup role with my new D7100 stepping into its place.)  Finally, I've seen the power of video to tell stories though experiences like my PolarTREC expedition and I know the attentive way my middle school students engage in topics with short movie clips.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, how about a movie?? 

Anyway, I'm still figuring this game out but I'd like to share three short bird videos I've made this spring and a lesson or two I learned from each.  I hope experienced bird videographers will leave their best tips in the comments to help get me and anyone over the learning curve faster!

 

Case 1:  Wilson's Snipe, Weld County, Colorado, 1 April 2013.  

Scenario:  First serious bird video I attempted.  I was shooting from my car along a roadside ditch with the feeding snipe (& nearby vocalizing male.)  

Lessons learned:

•  I shot this with the camera resting on my car's windowsill but still had trouble with shake and smooth panning.  I'm spoiled shooting stills with hand-holding teqnique, using high shutter speed and image-stabilization but with video it is important to use good support.  I resolve to have my bean bag on hand for windowsill work and my sturdy tripod & gimbal head for field work.
• The audio here is from the built-in microphone, far from terrible, but any breath of wind really scours the mic and trashes the sound recording.  I resolve to get an external mic with a wind muff to dampen wind noise and get better bird vocalizations and ambient noises.

 

 

Case 2: Short-eared Owl, Boulder County, Colorado, 16 April 2013.

Scenario:  After a significant spring blizzard there was an amazing fallout of longspurs along the plowed edges of eastern Boulder County rural roads.  When swapping notes with some buddies about what we'd seen I got wind of a Short-eared Owl a few roads over.  I shot from my vehicle which worked great as a blind- once I stopped and shut down the owl dismissed me after an initial keen look-over.  Sparse traffic didn't seem to bother the owl, either, and the drivers didn't even notice the bird as they passed it mere feet away (in fact, I missed it on my first transit, looking out along fencelines instead of roadside where it was sheltering on the leeward side of the roadside ditch.)

Lessons learned:  

• The beanbag on the window sill worked great for steadying the camera.  
• The addition of a RODE VideoMic Pro with a wind muff really helped to un-harsh the effect of wind.  HOWEVER...
• I left my image stabilizing on, and the mic picked up the sound of the gyros in the lens as a steady high-freqency whirring.   If you have a VR (Nikon) or IS (Canon) lens or similar system you can hear this if you put your ear next to the lens when the stabilizing feature is on, and the mic is right over the lens, ideally situated to capture this noise.  I resolved to turn off the VR when I'm shooting video.  For this vid I scrubbed most of the whirring out in post-production using the equalizer function in iMovie but if I had high-freqency bird vocalizations I would have lost them.

 

 

Case 3: Foraging Bonaparte's & Franklin's Gulls, Weld County, Colorado, 21 April 2013.

Scenario:  A midge hatch on a pond attracted a few dozen Bonies along with a Frankie or two.  I shot hundreds of stills, trying to capture some of the birds' amazing aerobatics and ability to nab midges without slowing down.

Stills like this are neat but only capture 1/2000 sec. each of a bird's behavior.  Amongst my still shooting I tried to keep up with their flights to put a little clip together.

Lessons learned:

• Here I felt like I was somewhat finally getting my act together- I set up my sturdy photo tripod rig (Gitzo 3541L+ Wimberly Gimbal Head), switched off my image stabilizing, mounted up my RODE mic with the wind muff, and let 'er rip.
• Even with the gimbal mount, keeping up with these birds was tricky.  I put the lens into continuous focus mode so I could just worry about trying to keep the birds in frame.  I also backed off the zoom a bit to have a wider image and thus more easily track the birds and lessen the jerkiness factor.  It did pretty well, although a high percentage of the footage was crappy.  As with stills, I learned to shoot a lot of video and be willing to look for the good stuff among the throwaway footage.  

 

 

Holiday Gift Packages from the ABA Shop!

Now that it's officially the "holiday season", the ABA has some fantastic gift ideas for the birder in your life, even if that birder is yourself.  

This year the ABA Shop is offering a couple different membership gift packages, a perfect gift for that birder who may not yet be a member of the ABA but could stand to benefit from all that membership entails, not only the fine publications, the member's only content, and the knowledge that your membership is helping to sustain internationally recognized programs like Birders' Exchange, but the opportunity to be a contributing part of the great North American birding community.  

Packages not only include membership, but decals, stickers, the official ABA trip and checklists, as well as either an ABA logo hat or an ABA logo binocular strap (super comfy, take my word for it).  

So give the gift of ABA membership to a birder you know.  We, and they, will certainly appreciate it. 

The Espresso Book Machine

For most purposes, I'm a firm convert to the creed of the digital book. I don't much like reading on a screen, but when it comes to looking something up -- a date, a spelling, a "fact" -- it's just as easy and just as satisfying to click a couple of times as it would be to get out of my chair and walk over to the bookcase.

And, of course, there are many, many times when the book I need isn't on my shelves anyway. Nowadays, most of the time, there's no need to get in the car and drive to Princeton or New York: more and more of the print resources I rely on are available on line from such repositories as the marvelous Biodiversity Heritage Library.     

But still, there are times and there are circumstances when nothing can beat the convenience of the codex. 

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about sparrows. Among the many older volumes I've turned to again and again is, naturally, Robert Ridgway's Birds of North and Middle America, still -- 111 years after the publication of the first volume -- the best collection of detailed plumage descriptions available.  

Indeed, so useful is the book that I finally decided I needed a copy of the real thing -- paper and ink -- to sit on the corner of the desk while I work. Unfortunately, it was quickly apparent that Part I, the sparrow volume, was on the scarce side in the used book market, and expensive; $50, the best price I could find, buys a lot of macaroni (or a little bit of dog food).

Enter the Espresso Book Machine. For $23, I could have a copy of the book printed out for me at McNally Jackson (or any of another 40 or so locations in the US), and for $6 more, they'd send it to me by express mail, saving me a trip across the Hudson to pick it up. Worth a try.

Hurricanes and snow storms meant that the mailing wasn't as express as planned, but the book arrived, and I'm impressed. It's the same size as the original (a real brick), and the quality of the copy is as high as that of the original print (which isn't saying much, admittedly). The paper is not of the highest quality, with the yellowish tinge I associate with central European photocopies, but it's certainly acceptable, and looks better and reads easier than most of the library copies of the original printing I've seen.

My only disappointment, and a mild one, is in the binding. Perfect bindings (oh bitterly ironic name) are cheap and quick, and the weight of the book block's 700+ pages is guaranteed to break this one sooner or later.

More significantly, the openings have essentially no gutter, and though I haven't noticed any actual loss of text, there are a few letters stuck so far down in there as to be discoverable only with the aid of a flashlight. This may simply be a peculiarity of the original book (from the University of Wisconsin) from which my copy was scanned, but even if it is a result of the EBM's trimming and binding process, this problem should be less likely to arise in volumes that are less massive than this.

Many classic bird and natural history books are available this way, though the EBM website doesn't invariably make searching for them easy. Bibliographical data are few and vague for many titles, especially those published in several volumes; it took two exchanges of e-mails before McNally Jackson and I were both certain that they were producing the correct part of BNMA for me -- their selection pages list only the title of the larger work, leaving the individual volumes unidentified.  

I expect that to improve as digitization efforts grow more disciplined. Meanwhile, the EBM is a great way for the researcher to get quick, relatively inexpensive access to paper copies of important reference works many of us don't own. And next time I'm in New York, I'm going to buy something just to watch the machine work. 

 

 

 

Kaufman and Kaufman: Field Guide to Nature of New England

I used to dream of a field guide that would let me identify everything I saw, a childish fantasy I gave up long ago: no book, no library can ever come close, not even for so relatively circumscribed and so relatively uniform a landscape as New England. Those six states are a big place, and "nature" is even bigger.

First Look: Swarovski's New ATX Scopes & Digiscoping Accessories At Hungary's Hortobágy

 

From left: Guide Attila Steiner looks on as Belgium's Gerard Driessens, England's Tim Appleton, and Sweden's Måns Karlsson field test Swarovski ATX scopes in Hungary's Hortobágy

 A little over a month ago, I was invited to represent the ABA at a pretty amazing gathering in Hungary. I say amazing in that it assembled quite a powerhouse of talent in the European birding industry. Editors, photographers, bloggers, from a wide variety of media outlets joined Swarovski country reps and a goodly number of Swarovksi Optik executives and staff from the home office in Austria.

North America wasn't slighted, though. In addition to me, Corey Finger of 10,000 Birds fame, Gus Axelson, Science Editor for the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and Clay Taylor, Swarovski's US Naturalist Markets Manager all made the trip across the pond to attend.

 

From left: Corey Finger, Gus Axelson, and Clay Taylor at Tisza Balneum on the shore of Lake Tisza

 

To attend what? The invitees weren't exactly sure and Clay, who we grilled en route, wasn't telling. All I knew was that I was being invited to attend an event put on by one of the ABA's major sponsors and advertisers and that there was going to be some great birding with some great people. I was in.

We didn't have to wait long. Shortly after our arrival at the Tisza Balneum, we were shown the new ATX spotting scopes and a couple of new digiscoping adapters. Then, even better, we were given a set of of the new products to use for the next several days.

Even though we knew we would have to surrender these nifty new toys before leaving, there was a palpable Christmas morning wave of excitement surging through the crowd. These things looked really cool! But how would they perform? 

 

First looks through the ATX. Why is it that we birders so often look through spotting scopes where people are swimming or sunbathing?

What follows are some photos and thoughts about the experience both of birding and digiscoping with the ATX setup and in Hungary. I hope they'll be of value to anyone with an interest in spotting scopes and digiscoping.

First question: what's new about these scopes? I realize that in the shots so far they may not look much different from other products already on the market. Well, have a look at the shot below.

Rather than the standard spotting scope/eyepiece configuration we're all accustomed to, where the eyepiece determines the magnification and zoom, there is now a system that more closely resembles a telephoto camera lens. You choose either a straight (STX) or angled (ATX) ocular unit and then attach it by means of a bayonet mount, again very like a camera lens, to an objective unit of which there are 3: a compact 65mm, an 85mm that is in the range of most larger spotting current spotting scopes, and a stonking big 95mm unit. All can be interchanged, producing scope combinations of different magnification, weight, and brightness

The advantages of such modularity are obvious. You can choose to emphasize small and light or big and bright or split the difference.




I ended up using the angled unit with the 95mm objective almost exclusively, though I spend a bit of time with the 65mm, too.

One last product shot and we'll get back out into the field. I was also given a sample of Swarovski's new TLS APO to test, an adapter that allows you to connect these scopes to a DLSR, Micro 4/3, or other interchangeable lens camera.

They also had samples of a new swing bracket style adapter for digiscoping with smaller point and shoot cameras but I didn't evaluate that. I've done lots of bird and nature photography with DSLRs and standard camera lenses, and a fair bit of digiscoping with point and shoots. But I've never digiscoped with an SLR before though I've been curious about it. So that's what I resolved to do with my time in Hungary. I only wondered how much learning curve there would be.

 

A White Wagtail worked the edge of a dock ©Jeffrey A Gordon

The answer: not much. I found that within 10 or 15 minutes I was getting images I was quite happy with. Not to mention the fun of practicing on common European garden birds that for me were things I seldom or never see.

 

A House Martin gathers mud ©Jeffrey A Gordon

 

In the reed beds around Lake Tisza, there were less domestic species. Three times, I was treated to brief fly-by looks at Little Bittern, one of which was exciting enough that I dropped one of my own lens hoods in the lake, losing it forever.

Any sting was soon eased by the looks and the photos I was getting at and of other birds. A Great Reed Warbler cooperated well, giving its loud, multipart song recalling by turns a thrasher or a chat and perching high up in its namesake substrate.

 

Great Reed Warbler ©Jeffrey A Gordon

A couple of things were obvious. One, Swarovski has really thought carefully about what birders and digiscopers experience in the field and tried to address many of the persistent issues. The TLS APO is easily the most elegant digiscoping adapter I've yet used, attaching a heavy camera body securely and easily. It also deattaches very quickly, making it possible to switch back and forth between photography and observation, which I did frequently.

For those who are not digiscopers, the ATX delivers beautiful views at the eyepiece, startlingly clear and bright and holding together very well even toward the upper end of the zoom range. With the 95mm, that's a whopping 70X. The other two front modules go to 60X.

The new arrangement of zoom and focussing rings adjacent on the barrel feels a bit novel at first but soon becomes second nature, especially if you have used larger camera lenses. And it solves another problem for digiscopers: now you can easily adjust the scope's focus and zoom with one hand while operating the camera with the other, you're not forced to make one hand switch between camera and zoom.

Ergonomically, the scopes were great. Even that giant 95mm didn't feel too heavy though my scope shoulder has carried a lot of weight over the years so your opinion might be different.

I will say, though, that the 65mm breaks new ground in portability. It's light and compact fully assembled. Break it down and it slides into an astonishingly small carrying case that looks more like it would hold a large pair of binoculars, not a scope. Traveling birders, and those who are fond of (or forced into) long hikes, take note. 

Did I see any problems or weaknesses? With the caveat that this was not an exhaustive field test, no. The only obvious question in my mind was how durable and resistant to water, dust, etc that bayonet connection will be. Swarovski's specs say that the ATX will be water tight to 4 meters, so they are confindent in that regard.

And though the ATX/TLS APO combination does indeed make DSLR digiscoping easy, it's still not quite as seamless as photography with a dedicated telephoto lens: there's no autofocus, of course, and metering with my Canon 50D and 60D bodies required frequent exposure adjustment, though nothing burdensome. 

On the plus side for ATX versus a big telephoto lens, the ATX is much smaller and lighter, less expensive, and offers you first rate viewing, something no camera/telephoto combo does.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with the quality and field functionality of the ATX system. I'm interested to see how popular it will prove with birders. Based on what I saw those few days in Hungary, it's likely to become among the most admired of birding optics.

To read Corey Finger's impressions from the same trip, go to his post at 10,000 Birds. Gus Axelson's report can be found at Cornell's Round Robin blog.

I'd also recommend perusing Swarovski's site devoted to the ATX/STX system. I haven't had much time to poke around it yet, but I thought the video here featuring Clay Taylor and Dale Forbes did a very good job of explaining how the TLS APO adapter works.

The ATX will debut publicly at the British Bird Fair next month. It should be available in the US and Canada sometime in September, when I'm sure you'll start to be able to see it in action at various birding festivals and other events.

Our partners at Eagle Optics will have more info on pricing and availibility.

What follows are a few more shots from the trip, which visited the marshes and steppes of Hortobágy, as well as the wooded Buuk Hills. All the wildlife shots are digiscoped with the ATX.

Walking the boardwalks at Halasto. ©Jeffrey A Gordon

 

Truly a multimodal trip, our group traveled by plane, bus, narrow gauge railroad, and even horse cart    ©Jeffrey A Gordon

 

A branchling Long-eared Owl at Hortobágy ©Jeffrey A Gordon

 

Birding the Buuk Hills ©Jeffrey A Gordon

 

Red-backed Shrike ©Jeffrey A Gordon

 

A butterfly whose name escapes me digiscoped with the 65mm ATX When this shot is viewed at full size, mites are clearly visible on the butterflie's thorax. That's sharp. ©Jeffrey A Gordon

 

What trip to Hungary would be complete without goulash and paprika? The group enjoys an outdoor meal at the Nomad Hotel.

 

 

Tee 'em Up!

I usually photograph birds on an opportunistic basis, toting my camera with me on outings and grabbing images as the chances present themselves.  When I find a good photo opp I'll tarry to get the most out of it, and if conditions are great an extended photo frenzy may even result. But in this blog installment I'd like to mention that it can also be fun and productive to plan shoots right down to the perch you want to photograph birds on.

I'm just back from 3 weeks in Northwest Wisconsin, where I was treated to birds I rarely see in Colorado.  A few will serve well as examples of photographic subjects captured in a more considered way.  

The first case features a family of Great Crested Flycatchers who were nesting near my cabin in a bluebird house (despite the nearby availability of a box I made to Great Crested Flycatcher specs but what can you do?)  The nesting box was along the lake shore, out in the open about 10 yards or so from more wooded terrain.  I noticed the parents steadily bringing in food, flying from the woods to the house without offering decent photo possibilities.  Of course I didn't want to obstruct the feeding schedule despite my interest in getting good shots of the birds, so I implemented a plan that would keep the birds and me happy.  Step one was to pick a nice, weathered old aspen branch from the woods and prop it up about 2/3 of the way from the woods to the house.  This only took a couple of minutes and as I was walking back to my cabin a bug-bearing parent had already decided to use the perch to stage on- a great sign!  Step two was to set up my pop-up blind so that I had good range, good light, and a nice backdrop.  This also took just a few minutes (the blind is basically just a folding camp chair with cammo material and netting suspended on spring steel hoops over it.)  Within minutes of zipping in the parents were right back on their feeding schedule and my GCFL photography commenced.  It was pretty cool seeing the variety of insect prey the parents produced and the frequency of their feeding visits- those things are darned effective hunters!

 

Great Crested Flycatcher with skipper butterfly (anyone know the species?),  Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.

Great Crested Flycatcher about to feed chicks the skipper butterfly, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.

Great Crested Flycatcher, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.

Great Crested Flycatcher with fish fly, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.

The second case involved my desire to photograph some of the great birds coming to the feeders by the main cabin.  I'd watch the birds come in whenever we were eating- the set-up is the lawn right outside the windows where the dining room table sits (hey, I'm from a birding family!)  The problem is that shooting birds on feeders leaves a little something to be desired.  So I pounded a two-foot length of iron pipe into the yard near the feeders as a foundation and then wired a few interesting branches to it.  Once again I deployed my blind to be close and have good light, and waited on the birds.  Some would use the perches but many flew straight to the feeding tray- eye on the prize, I guess.  So I set the tray on the ground under the perches- bingo!  Now many of the birds I was interested in would sit on a branch to figure out the new configuration.  Interestingly, most would soon drop down and feed anyway so I didn't feel as though I was depriving them too much.  When I was done with a session I'd put the tray back on the post where it normally resided.  Here are some of the results.  Enjoy!  

 

Baltimore Oriole, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.  The perch, a jelly bowl on a tray feeder, leaves much to be desired...

 

Baltimore Oriole, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.  Here the distracting jelly feeder is just a few feet out of the frame below the perch I set up (but that can be our little secret!)

Male Purple Finch, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.

Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.

Red-breasted Nuthatch, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.  I like to use interesting branches for perching setups like this one of rotten paper birch.

 

White-breasted Nuthatch, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.  I find nuthatches to be vexing photo targets most of the time, but both species were very interested in fully cheking out the perches I set up before they resumed their swift single sunflower seed-snatching behavior.

 

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2012.  As you might guess, I moved the hummingbird feeder to my set-up perches and soon enough this male took over, loitering atop the highest spot a few feet above the feeder.

Feeding Turkey Vultures

I'm up in the north woods of Wisconsin on a family vacation.  I've been coming up to a lake place nestled in 100 acres of woods here for 40 or so years, first as a youngster experiencing the benefits of messing around on the lake and in the woods, and now bringing along my own youngster to season him a bit away from big city life.  I love to be among many old friends like nesting Common Loons, singing Whip-poor-wills, and twittering American Woodcocks but it can be a bit tricky to come up with something new on the birding front after so many years visiting here.  This summer a strange inspiration struck me after I saw a few Turkey Vultures sailing by on the wind.  I got to thinking of how cool vultures are but also how I don't really see them much "in action", especially in wooded lanscapes.  I wondered if I could successfully attract some ala Bill Thompson III. 

I didn't have similar access to years' worth of freezer-burned meat so in true science teacher fashion I kept a garbage bag, gloves, and twine in the car and kept my eyes peeled for suitable vulture vittles on trips to town.  Soon enough I spied an unfortunate raccoon, just a touch bloated and fly-blown, which I bagged and tied to the roof rack (I learned years ago to secure deceased biological specimens somewhere on the exterior of vehicles after a nicely antlered but still slightly meaty white-tailed deer head that I found on a bracingly cold CBC gradually developed a strongly disagreeable aroma as it thawed, quite to the dismay of the owner of the spiffy car.)  

Back at our lake place that evening I put the coon in a clearing well away from any buildings or roads and deployed a couple of trail cams to keep electronic eyes on the proceedings.  I didn't know what to expect for turnout in terms of response speed or numbers but I was pleasantly surprised by both.  The cams showed that by 8:45 the next morning a committee of at least eleven Turkey Vultures had gathered for their turn at the carcass, and by the middle of the next day there wasn't much beyond fur and bones left.  There didn't seem to be much (if any) evidence of conflict and I wonder how they decide who has feeding precedence?  

It was a pretty fun experiment and I've got my eyes peeled for more vulture food- perhaps next time I'll try putting the roadkill in more dense woods to see how that affects the vultures' detection abilities.  Here are a few stills from my Reconyx HC500 and three video clips strung together from my Scoutguard SG565 showing some of the proceedings- hope you enjoy them!

  

Slap on a Hat- In Style!

With the summer season upon us, I thought I'd mention Wallaroo Hats.  I just found out about this neat hat company by receiving one of their brown check Jasper hats as a gift.  It has a wide 3" brim, is very light and airy, sports an adjustable headband and chin strap (critical for birdng on windy days) and snaps back to shape if mashed.  Wallaroo offers a wide variety of natty models offering UPF 50+ ratings to keep those gnarly UV rays off your scalp, neck, and face.  These go beyond typical floppy sun hats to offer plenty of style and function with easy-to-care-for materials.  Also nice is Wallaroo's support of skin cancer research- they donate 1% of their annual profits to this cause.  So check out their chapeau offerings if you are needing a new topper for sunny birding outings!!  

Secrets of Digital Bird Photography

I just found a great new book about digital bird photography.  Secrets of Digital Bird Photography, by Bill
Majoros, is an online book worth a perusal by anyone from rank beginners to well-seasoned avian shutterbugs.  Best of all, the book is free! (Bill accepts donations to offset his web hosting costs- if you find the book helpful please consider chipping in.)  Take a look at the table of contents below to get a feeling for how comprehensive this book is.  Each section is hot linked so that jumping to a particular topic is just a click away, a boon for a book with this much information (900+ pages worth!) Big thumbs up- check this out &/or refer it to your bird photog buddies!

Chapter 1 : Introduction	Chapter 10 : Fundamentals of Image Processing
1.1 Introduction	10.1 Zooming, Cropping, and Resolution
1.2 A Note about Editions	10.2 Pixels and Bits
1.3 Brief Outline	10.3 Image Layers
Part I : Equipment	10.4 Visual Qualities
Chapter 2 : Cameras	10.5 Editing History
2.1 DSLR Cameras	10.6 Selection
2.2 Point-and-shoot Cameras and Digiscoping	Chapter 11 : Common Tasks
2.3 Megapixels and Crop Factors	11.1 Reducing Noise
2.4 Brands	11.2 Fixing Blown Highlights
2.5 ISO	11.3 Correcting Exposure
2.6 Autofocus	11.4 Eye Shine and Catchlights
2.7 Bells and Whistles	11.5 Removing Unwanted Items
2.8 Cleaning your DSLR	11.6 Sharpening
Chapter 3 : Lenses	11.7 Correcting Color, Saturation and Tilt
3.1 Focal Length and Aperture	Chapter 12 : Developing a Workflow
3.2 Zoom versus Prime	12.1 An Example Workflow
3.3 Special Glasses and Coatings	12.2 Structuring Your Archive
3.4 Teleconverters and Extension Tubes	12.3 Filtering
3.5 Image Stabilization	12.4 Conversion from RAW
3.6 Third-party Lenses	12.5 Separation of Subject
3.7 Sharpness and Bokeh	12.6 De-emphasizing the Background
3.8 Bells and Whistles	12.7 Sizing and Signatures
3.9 Cleaning Lenses	Chapter 13 : Advanced Techniques
3.10 Buying Lenses Used	13.1 Replacing the Background
3.11 Lens Calibration	13.2 Adding Artificial Clouds
3.12 Carrying Lenses in the Field	13.3 HDR and Tone Mapping
3.13 Other Considerations	13.4 Simulating Motion Blur
Chapter 4 : Accessories	13.5 Merging Poses
4.1 Tripods	Part IV : Distribution
4.2 Tripod Heads	Chapter 14 : Making and Selling Prints
4.3 External Flash	14.1 Practical Printing Issues
4.4 Other Accessories	14.2 Matting and Framing Prints
Chapter 5 : The Digital Darkroom	14.3 Putting Your Photos on Display
5.1 Choosing a Computer	14.4 Selling Bird Photos
5.2 Choosing a Monitor	Chapter 15 : Making a Slideshow DVD
5.3 Hard Drives	15.1 Software for DVD Production
5.4 Options for Backup	15.2 Image Quality
5.5 Card Readers	15.3 Obtaining Royalty-free Music
5.6 Image Processing Software	15.4 DVD Duplication and Packaging
Part II : Technique	Chapter 16 : Sharing Your Photos
Chapter 6 : Operating the Camera	16.1 Photo Hosting Sites
6.1 F-stops, Shutter Speeds, and ISO	16.2 Building a Custom Web Site
6.2 Exposing to the Right	16.3 Advertising Your Site
6.3 Exposure Modes	Appendix
6.4 Metering Modes	A. Additional Sources of Information
6.5 Autofocus Modes	Subject Index
6.6 Drive Modes	Photo Gallery
6.7 Selecting AF Points
6.8 Rapid Exposure Adjustments
6.9 Exposure Bracketing and HDR
6.10 RAW Versus JPG
6.11 Mirror Lock-up and Live View
Chapter 7 : Using Flash
7.1 Why Use Flash?
7.2 How Flash Works
7.3 Built-in Versus External Flash
7.4 Powering Your Flash Unit
7.5 Flash Settings and Exposure
7.6 Fill Flash Versus Flash as Main Light
7.7 Freezing Hummingbirds
7.8 Dealing with Red-eye and Steel-eye
7.9 Flash Extenders
7.10 Avoiding a Meltdown
7.11 Other Issues
Chapter 8 : Field Techniques
8.1 General Composition Principles
8.2 Angles and Light
8.3 Poses and Aliasing
8.4 Getting Close
8.5 Steadying the Camera
8.6 Being Flexible in the Field
8.7 Some Popular Bird Photography Locations
8.8 Planning a Bird Photography Trip
8.9 Photographing Warblers
8.10 Photographing Birds in Flight
Chapter 9 : Turning Your Yard into a Studio
9.1 Natural and Artificial Perches
9.2 Rustic Embellishments
9.3 Backgrounds

 

Mic up that iPhone: Follow Up

I think I still have a ways to go before I'd call myself an authority on using an iPhone (or similar device) to produce bird recordings, but I've learned a lot since my initial post on this topic about a month ago.  Let me comment on three aspects of acquiring bird sounds on an iPhone.

1) Getting sounds into your device.

• Good:  If a bird is close or loud enough, the built-in mic can capture acceptable recordings.
• Better:  An iPhone/iPod/etc. specific mic can add a lot of reach.  I'm still happy with the  Edutige EIM-001 i-Microphone Voice Recorder- it is small (almost too small- easy to misplace) & fairly cheap and really boosts the audio.  The sound quality isn't necessarily professional, but not bad for documenting & researching bird sounds.
• Best: A high-quality shotgun mic:  David La Puma and others have figured out that an iPhone/iPod/etc. can be a great digital bird sound recorder if you have a quality shotgun mic to capture vocalizations.  The problem is that normal mics won't record to the iPhone/iPod/etc. jack, which is designed for both input and output (iPhone headphones have a built-in mic for phone conversations, talking to Siri, etc.)  An adapter is needed if you want to pipe in sound from a good mic, & fortunately these are available through 3rd party manufacturers.  For example, the kV Connections iPhone 1/8" Microphone Adapter will allow input from a powered mic with a 1/8" (3.5mm) jack.  kV Connections also makes other adapters for different mic types so check them out if you are looking for an input solution.

2) Selecting an app for your recordings.

• Good: Use the device's built-in voice memo app.  Free, works fine.
• Better (maybe?):  Use a 3rd-party recording app (free or cheap) if its features and interface are more to your liking.  For now, I've settled on Recorder (free).  Recordings are pretty easy to get off the phone and onto your computer.  File types are limited to AIFF or MP3, probably fine for dabblers like myself.
• Best:  Use a professional field recording app like FiRe 2 ($6).  Link over to see the impressive list of features this app boasts...

3) Selecting sound processing software to use on your computer.  I'm too far out of my league to offer much meaningful insight here.  Perhaps folks with more experience can offer suggestions for us in the comments or in another blog post??  

• Good:  Use free audio editing software like Audacity.  It has some basic filters, produces spectrograms, & the price is right!  Ted Floyd has figured out some neat tricks with Audacity & I hope he'll comment on these or offer up a post on the topic...
• Also Good:  Cornell's free Raven Light lets users record, save, and visualize sounds as spectrograms and waveforms.  Editing options are limited, though.   Andrew Spencer offers some great tips & tricks to using this software at Earbirding.com.
• Better/Best:  Sound guru Nathan Pieplow extols Adobe Audition on his Earbirding.com blog & offers Audition editing tips & tricks in one of his posts.  Can anyone comment on Cornell's Raven Pro or other options to consider for serious bird sound editing??

Vocalizing Canyon Wren © Bill Schmoker, Jefferson County, Colorado, March 2009