Rathika Ramaswamy is a Computer Engineer with specialization in Business Management. However, the New Delhi based professional was drawn to birding about 5 years ago and represents the new breed of birders in India.
Born and educated in southern Tamilnadu, Rathika moved over to New Delhi to pursue her interest in photography, particularly bird photography. Infact, the actual transition from travel and people photography, to nature pho-tography happened after her visit to the Bharatpur bird sanctuary in 2004. The reason – she wanted to not only shoot the birds, but also enjoy looking at the images time and again. The rest, as they say is history, for she took to bird photography with a Nikon D70 and Sigma 170-500mm lens.
“I am fascinated with birds, and never get tired of watching and photographing them. The fact that New Delhi is surrounded by many bird sanctuaries, wetlands and national parks, primarily influenced my shifting base to the capital. Okhla bird sanctuary is in close promity to my residence, which I visit regularly. I spend a lot of time watching the birds in this brid sanctuary, especially in the early mornings. Besides, I often visit Bharatpur too. The fact that the majority of the birds are very tiny and also shy, makes it all the more challenging to shoot their pictures. Importantly, patience, perseverance, passion is central to bird photography. That apart, it is pertinent to continuously update and learn about the brids to make memorable images. In short, by understanding the behavioural patterns and nesting patterns, alongwith their food habits, helps in understanding avian photography”, she recalls.
In an exclusive to Smart Photography, she reveals her mantra to success.
Views on Technique and Lighting
In bird photography, using a flash certainly would not make a sense because animals and birds are generally located at quite a distance. The core fact is that wildlife activity generally happens at dawn and dusk, in extremely low lighting conditions. This necessitates shooting with wide aperture for it gives you enough shutter speed to get sharp images. But the action happens so spontaneously and fast, that handling your equipment should be your second nature.
It is essential to set the correct aperture, ISO, shutter speed to get a perfectly exposed frame. Shooting at ISO 400-800 will be ideal, unless of course you have a full frame camera body. However, when you are inside the forest with spot-lit and back-lit conditions, it is important to switch into manual exposure mode and use spot metering. Besides, set the white balance and ISO manually.
Gadgets that matter
For wildlife photography, lens used should have minimum 300mm focal length. In the case of birds, you need a lens with minimum 400mm focal length. DX camera body is ideal for wildlife photography, as it enables extra focal length. But in case you use a single lens, then zoom lens 80-400mm is ideal choice. In addition, image stabiliser VR/IS lenses are good for shooting handheld shots. Bean bag and tripod are absolutely critical accessories to avoid lens shake and blur.
I mostly use Nikkor AF-S VR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED and Nikkor AF-S VR 600mm f/4G ED with a teleconverter.
Mathew Thottungal
Her Favorite Image!
It goes without saying that my favourite photograph is that of the dancing Sarus cranes. I took the photograph at Bharatpur, Rajasthan in 2009. I was following them for more than 6 months, by photographing their profile, family, nesting, close up portrait shots etc. In fact, I was particularly waiting to capture them in a courtship dance. Sarus cranes are generally spotted in pairs. I spotted one particular pair in a mustard field, and I could only see their heads. I waited for them to come out in to the open. After more than an hour, they came out and started dancing. This particular shot has come out precisely the way I visualised it – the two of them close to each other, looking in the same direction, doing a salsa dance.
Technically challenging frame!
It is a fact that the lighting conditions in forests make it difficult to shoot the right kind of images. But I definitely recall one particular image that was technically challenging to document. The shot was photographing the Srilankan Frogmouth at the Salim Ali Bird sanctuary, Thattekad. It is a nocturnal bird and its face looks like a frog’s mouth. In particular it has the natural camouflage of a dry tree branch, and cannot be spotted easily. The bird was sitting on a small tree branch, which was shaded from any sunlight. Some light was filtering through tall trees. But I didn’t have any place to keep the tripod. And with a tree branch as support, I used a slow shutter speed 1/6 sec, aperture F/5 and captured it.
EXIF: Nikon D200, Nikkor AF-S VR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED, 1/6 sec f/5.0 at 155.0mm ISO 160
 Secrets |
 Food for thought |
 Idling away |
 On the lookout |
 The tallest of them all |
 Perfect harmony |
 |
 |
