We all know that there are many photography modes out there. Which one is the best for bird photography? This blog post will discuss which metering mode is the best for bird photographers and why it’s important to use.
When shooting a photo of a subject in flight like a bird, you first need to use spot metering mode.
Bird Photographer Metering Modes
Spot Metering
Spot metering mode will help you accurately read how your camera would capture the scene by measuring an area on or near the subject being photographed.
This helps because if you don’t have enough light, your camera may think that everything in the photograph has even exposure, resulting in too much contrast between dark and light areas- not good!
But what if you still don’t have enough light even in spot metering mode?
Well, that’s when you need to go Manual Exposure Mode. Yes, you might be thinking “What if I forgot what exposure time to use?”, fret not! It’s okay to go Manual Mode most of the time because all your camera needs to do is just meter what it can.
Manual Metering
With that said, this is the part where you must understand that going Manual will help you avoid the changing background problem.
What’s the changing background problem? Well, during that time your subject is in front of the camera and then flies behind some branches. You try to take a photo, but you end up with an under-exposed or overexposed subject because your background has changed (it’s bright or dark).
But when you’re going Manual Mode, the amount of light captured will be constant and your bird won’t go out of your frame when it’s in the middle of flying.
In the end, it’s up to you to experiment with what works best for you.
