{"id":27981,"date":"2014-11-18T06:18:23","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T13:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=27981"},"modified":"2014-11-18T06:18:23","modified_gmt":"2014-11-18T13:18:23","slug":"setups-in-bird-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/18\/setups-in-bird-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Setups in Bird Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

In bird photography “setups” are a matter of taste.<\/p>\n

I nearly always add a tech line below my bird images\u00a0where I\u00a0include the words “not baited,\u00a0set up or called in”.\u00a0 As a result I’m often asked just what a setup actually is so I thought it was time to clear that up.\u00a0\u00a0Birds are notoriously difficult and uncooperative\u00a0subjects.\u00a0\u00a0They’re prone to extreme shyness, hiding in thick cover and perching in unattractive or\u00a0busy settings\u00a0so many photographers circumvent those challenges by setting up elaborate and unnatural\u00a0“stages” for their photography.\u00a0 They tend to use attractive perches in good light with pleasing (often artificial)\u00a0backgrounds and then bait their\u00a0subjects in with food and\/or electronic\u00a0 calls.<\/p>\n

Before we go further I encourage readers to watch this clip<\/a> where\u00a0a well-known bird photographer walks the viewer through the construction and use\u00a0of an elaborately designed and highly controlled\u00a0setup\u00a0meant specifically for goldfinch photography.\u00a0 The video will give you a better feeling for setup photography than my descriptions ever will.<\/p>\n

Personally, setup photography doesn’t appeal to me in the least.\u00a0 Setup photographs of songbirds\u00a0are nearly always easy to spot because of their combination of clean backgrounds, uncluttered foregrounds and\u00a0their unusually attractive perches.\u00a0 Flash is often used in these situations (you can\u00a0see flash\u00a0constantly going off toward the end of the clip) and\u00a0I don’t like using flash on birds.\u00a0 And I prefer not to control my subjects.\u00a0 This makes getting a nice shot much more difficult but when I do succeed it gives me a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment that would be unobtainable if\u00a0I shot setups.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/strong> <\/em>EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I photographed this American Goldfinch a few weeks ago at Farmington Bay.\u00a0 I think it’s technically a good image – there’s\u00a0ample detail, both bird and\u00a0dried sunflower\u00a0are sharp, the light angle works well and both bird and perch are unobstructed.\u00a0 But for me it has the look of a setup (which it is not) and for that reason (and the fact that there’s not much personality from the finch) the image just doesn’t light my fire.\u00a0 I suppose that’s my problem, a prejudice against setups that I’ve long had and likely always will.<\/p>\n

For me, setups are more akin to studio photography or zoo photography than they are to nature photography and they leave me cold, especially when the setup is not disclosed (which it seldom is).<\/p>\n

The opinions of others may (and do) vary…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In bird photography “setups” are a matter of taste.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1756,6,334,16],"tags":[1757,42,2176,397,1263,2318,2317],"class_list":["post-27981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-goldfinch","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-photography-ethics","tag-american-goldfinch-2","tag-baiting","tag-electronic-calls","tag-farmington-bay","tag-flash","tag-setup","tag-spinis-tristis"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/american-goldfinch-9827-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-7hj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}