Photography tip - Low-angle photography

If you are somewhat new to photographing birds or if you ever wondered why people are photographing birds laying down on their stomach, I hope this post will illustrate it and motivate you to always try to lower your posture.

In the past, few folks accused me of heavily manipulating my photographs to achieve this effect.

I took following series of shots on one of my recent visits to the beach. I stumbled upon this cooperative Piping Plover and decided to illustrate why I always take photographs lying down on my stomach.

In below photographs there is no photoshop trickery. All settings in the camera are the same. The only difference is my position. Image #1 was taken in standing position, #2 kneeling/stitting, #3 laying down with camera at the high of a Skimmer Pod and #4 with my lens hood resting on the sand (extreme low-angle).

That’s it!

Imagine how much work you will have to do in photoshop to get image #1 to look like image #4?

I wouldn’t be even able to do it but you can do it in a matter of few seconds right in the camera. Simply lower your posture. Unless taking “documentary” snapshots or when photographing birds in-flight, I never take photographs of shorebirds while standing. I always lay down, or at least kneel down. 

All photographs are taken with a 600mm f/4 lens on a full frame camera.

All 4 photographs were taken at f/4.

Note how foreground and background changes and how the bird “comes into focus”. Also, note that in the image #4 I was able to get some blue sky incorporated into the frame. Something that wasn't possible while standing or kneeling down.

Standing

Kneeling or sitting down

Laying down but with camera/lens 5 inches of the ground

Laying down with my lens hood resting on the sand aka extreme low-angle

Isn’t it wild!

So what do you think? Are you going to try it out?

Below is an example on how aperture (f setting) affects the low angle photography.

All photographs were taken at the same distance, I only changed the aperture from f/4 to f8 to f/16 to f/22

Note how all “the distractions” come into the focus with aperture getting smaller.

f/4

f/8

f/16

f/22

Just remember that shooting “wide open” (at f/4) works only when a subject is several feet away. If it was closer, I would have to “stop down” (change aperture to f/5.6 or even f/8) as it “wouldn't fit” into the depth of field. Simply put, the closer the bird gets to you, and you are shooting at low angle, “close” your aperture (change it from f/4 to f/8). If it is a larger bird, you might need to even go to f/16.

To take it up a notch, look at the photograph below. Can you notice how smooth background and foreground is? Can you tell how I achieved it? (again no photoshop tricks).

Beach isn’t perfectly flat. There are always some parts of the beach that vary slightly in height. For this particular image, plover moved to slightly higher part that I was located in. The difference was only about 5 inches but it was enough to completely blur everything except the plover. (my lens was slightly below the level of the surface that this plover was standing on). In this situation is very important not to go to low as you will start “loosing” sharpness on the bird’s legs.

Additional benefit of shooting while laying down is that birds will be more relaxed around you, often approaching you closer.

If needed, I can attach screenshots of a my Lightroom catalog showing the RAW files to prove that there were no adjustments done to these photographs. But I think you believe me 😁

If you’ve never try this, test it out yourself next time you are on the beach or even in your backyard. 

You don’t need 600mm f/4 lens to achieve this effect either. You can easily achieve it with 100-400mm f/5.6, or similar, lens. Just get a subject in about 20-30 feet away from you. Just remember that it is easier to achieve it in a full frame camera, than in a crop sensor or micro 4/3. The smaller the sensor the “deeper” the depth of field is.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments below.

I hope that you got something useful from this post and I hope this will be the only way you shoot from now on 😬