In case you're interested in back yard bird photography . . .

[AndyS]

Build Your Own Backyard Bird Studio
Olympus Educator Steve Ball
Thursday, May 20 at 5 PM ET

Join Steve as he shares his tips and tricks on how to make a small suburban backyard a portrait studio for birds. He will discuss his favorite camera settings, how to put together a posing platform, where to place food — the works!

This is a live event but quite often the video is available after the event is over. During the event the audience can ask questions so it's not a canned presentation.

It is an infomercial for Olympus so expect brand specific advice on settings, menus etc. Still, a presentation of setting up a backyard 'studio' will apply to everybody.

[Nay]

1. Thank you for this! I've been contemplating a setup for my yard, but I bet this

will show me a better way than any I could come up with.

[AndyS]

2. I kinda live in a tree house located in a wildlife preserve of sorts.

I live in a 600 square foot second floor of a 1200 sq foot house. Have a balcony that runs the width of the house and trees surrounding it.

I set up feeders 6' away from the floor to ceiling glass doors and made a 'hide' that allows me to shoot birds in the 'staging' area 15' away.





If you're setting up an environment from the start be aware of where you can shoot from and what the background will look like. If possible it should be darker than the subject you want to shoot.

Attach perches that look 'natural' to the feeder so the birds will have a place to sit and wait their turn.

[Nay]

3. Nice! I don't have an area as suitable as yours, as our bird feeders can't be placed

anywhere except in the open yard, but I'm working on using a blind somehow.

[AndyS]

4. You can get inexpensive pop tents

for about $40. For our purposes the camouflaged hunting blinds aren't necessary because bird's vision is so acute that you're not gonna' fool them anyway.

This is a shower tent that sells for about $40. You would have to cut windows or slits to poke your lens through. Zoom lenses work really well as you can zoom out to see the whole feeder area the zoom in on your subject. Take it down and store it under the bed when not using it.



I've used these on the hunting property for deer (hunted there for a decade and successfully avoided killing anything!)