Bird Photo Booth

[Thlayle]

There's been some recent publishing of photos that backyard birders are taking with this "Bird Photo Booth." If you buy the "booth" itself, you get just a plastic box and a bluetooth remote (and a few minor accessories).

So someone bought the booth for me (just the booth).

I've decided that what makes the shots interesting is the ultra-wide angle. When I compare this to others taken from a distance, using my 200mm, this image proves to be more interesting because of all the background & feeling of depth.

This is my only "success" so far. Working off from a really unstable Wi-fi on my sports cam (a Go Pro knock-off), I could barely get any shots in due to connection issues and app crashes and other such nonsense.

[NorthernFocus]

This looks like an item more of interest to birders than photographers. Cell phone, GoPro, etc, work OK for landscape photos because with landscape it is typically desirable to use such wide angles and for the entire scene to be within the DOF. But most wildlife/bird photographers go to great lengths to eliminate that "feeling of depth" thus isolating the subject. Though ANY new toy does have its interesting qualities

[madcrow]

For bird photography you need a camara a good lens and lots of patience.

[Thlayle]

This looks like an item more of interest to birders than photographers. Cell phone, GoPro, etc, work OK for landscape photos because with landscape it is typically desirable to use such wide angles and for the entire scene to be within the DOF. But most wildlife/bird photographers go to great lengths to eliminate that "feeling of depth" thus isolating the subject. Though ANY new toy does have its interesting qualities

Dan: very good points. I can get much higher quality images of the birds with my dslr. As an experiment, I set up with my good 200 mm lens & used a motion trigger. The technical quality, the sharpness and detail, are superior of course to these sports cam shots. But the result looked to me just like the birders' pics: great quality but really just exemplars of the birds and not a photographic composition.

Maurice: you are right of course and I concluded long ago that good bird photography is really about good birding (read: LOTS OF PATIENCE).

What I found as a bit of a surprise with this toy, and with others' published shots from a set up like this, is that it's the extreme closeness to the bird along WITH the greater field of view that makes them interesting photos on their own, not just the esoteric material for birders.

I don't foresee doing a lot more with the sports cam. I might try my iPhone for this. It turns out very nice images -- but I will have to figure out a wi-fi remote trigger for it. The one I have from the "photo booth" is very unreliable and is why I only got this one shot with it when I tried it out.

Next I think I will set up my 14mm with the DSLR sitting very close & see how that looks. That's one thing about this set up wit the sports cam: it's silent and thus does not scare off the birds.

[JBW]

Dan raises an interesting question: Is this a one off experiment to see what what happens? Or is this something that will lead you down a new path? I'm hoping for the latter.
Brian

[Shadowman]

Video captures some great sequences as well, nice effort.

[rpcrowe]

A few years ago there was a photographer in the San Diego, California area who set up a small video camera in a nesting box for owls. The videos went viral with TV coverage of mom and dad owls and their owlet brood. It was really enjoyable to watch the entire process from the owls building the nest within the box to the hatching of the eggs through the rearing of the owlets.

I have a small birdhouse a few feet from my kitchen window that has become home to a family of finches. I cannot see into the house but, may set up a camera there next year...

[Shadowman]

A few years ago there was a photographer in the San Diego, California area who set up a small video camera in a nesting box for owls. The videos went viral with TV coverage of mom and dad owls and their owlet brood. It was really enjoyable to watch the entire process from the owls building the nest within the box to the hatching of the eggs through the rearing of the owlets.

I have a small birdhouse a few feet from my kitchen window that has become home to a family of finches. I cannot see into the house but, may set up a camera there next year...

I would definitely do it, there are some cameras that work by motion detection and that would definitely be a bonus feature.

[Wavelength]

I feel it tells a story...