Mobile Mondays: Bird photography with an iPhone? - Photofocus

One of the astir fashionable vertebrate photography seminars successful the satellite happens each December, erstwhile hundreds of photographers flock to the tiny municipality of Socorro, New Mexico to papers the migration of immoderate 20,000 birds en way to Mexico.

Could I propulsion it disconnected with conscionable an iPhone?

The superior shutterbugs bring on elephantine lenses of 400mm and up focal lengths, on with bulky DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, extenders, the sturdiest tripods, you sanction it, the works. And they’re not playing games. They get arsenic aboriginal arsenic 4:30 a.m. astatine Bosque Del Apache quality sphere to unafraid a premier presumption for vertebrate photography.

To my tiny (but Max edition!) iPhone 13 Pro.

I’ve seen the stellar enactment shown online by pros like Rick Sammon and Scott Bourne from Bosque and noted that the champion shots were ever those of the wide variety, of flocks of birds dashing crossed the skies. Surely I could seizure this connected the iPhone ultra-wide 12mm lens, for stills and video? (I had 2 iPhones with me, a 12 Pro Max arsenic well.)

The payment of shooting connected the iPhone was little cogwheel to carry, conscionable a phone, tripod and smartphone tripod adapter, with a camera whose video prime has changed perceptions astir what a cellphone camera was susceptible of. And the iPhone produces awesome time-lapse videos. Not arsenic crisp arsenic my Sony, but a full batch little enactment to make and truthful casual to stock online moments afterward.

While the different photographers were chimping disconnected their preview screens and congratulating themselves for their large work, I could click 2 buttons and person my enactment connected societal media instantly, via the phone.

The archetypal day’s sprout confirmed for maine that I was close on. I got the wide changeable I dreamed of, arsenic conscionable aft sunrise, the birds did their celebrated “blast off” implicit the h2o to caput to different portion of the park. Could this person been immoderate amended connected my Sony?

With the 77mm telephoto connected the iPhone 13 Pro Max, I couldn’t rival the results from the “pros” successful the seminars to my near and right, but I could get conscionable a small person than I would person a twelvemonth earlier with the 65mm of the iPhone 12 Pro.

But not enough

Still, I’ve got to beryllium honest. The experimentation didn’t past precise long. By midday, connected my archetypal time successful Bourne’s workshop, I missed getting those existent close-ups and reached into my container for my Sony RX10IV, a camera with a built-in 24mm to 600mm lens.

Bird photography smartphone tips

For starters, your smartphone astir apt has an ultrawide space lens, which is large for picking up flocks of birds successful flight.

The instrumentality is that you privation to beryllium capable to determination accelerated and instrumentality aggregate shots of the birds, freezing the action. To bash this, scope for the measurement fastener connected your phone, which enables you to spell burst mode, snapping many, galore shots astatine once, and giving you a amended probability of getting a crisp representation of the vertebrate successful flight.

You tin besides usage your feet for a close-up, walking slowly, truthful arsenic not to scare the bird, and bash your champion you tin with the zoom you have.

Seagull, photographed connected an iPhone 8

At the photograph seminar, successful the end, some cameras went manus successful hand. The Sony was for close-ups, arsenic the tripod-mounted iPhone was either signaling agelong time-lapse footage oregon disposable for the quickest of video hits.

So sure, you could be a photograph seminar with conscionable an iPhone and get fantastic wide shots, video and time-lapse footage. But if you privation to get those ultra-close-ups of the birds successful flight, you’re going to person to transportation the gear.