Master Bird Photography: Canon 7D Mark II Settings Revealed

If you’re wondering how I clicked these classic shots of birds and you’d like to click similar pictures, then stick around! In this video, I’ll teach you all the camera settings that go into making pictures like

these. I’m Girish Menon and I just show up on your screen and start talking about photography. I offer you free photography tips that’ll help you to click better pictures.

And I release a new video every week, so please subscribe so that you don’t miss out! This was at Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary in India. I clicked these pictures with the Canon 300MM F4 IS lens on a Canon 7D Mark II Camera.

Before we talk about focus and exposure, let’s look at the lesser spoken about settings on the Canon 7D Mark II. I set my Image quality to RAW, always.

RAW files are uncompressed files that let me adjust the white balance, colour correct my pictures, and counter lens abnormalities through software such as Adobe Lightroom. Image review OFF.

I’m almost always clicking in the burst mode. I don’t need to look at my pictures after I click them because there’s no time for that when clicking wildlife.

Beep Disabled. Obviously. You don’t want your camera beeping every time it achieves focus.

Release shutter without card OFF. This is very important. Setting it OFF prevents me from pressing down the shutter release button when there’s

no card in the camera. So that I don’t think I’m clicking pictures when I’m not. Lens aberration correction Disabled in the camera.

But I’ll apply lens corrections in Adobe Lightroom later. This corrects distortion, vignetting, and other abnormalities that every lens has. I set my white balance to AWB which is Auto white balance.

Auto lighting optimiser OFF. This setting when turned ON pulls out details in the shadows. This can be useful in tricky lighting situations but it only affects JPEG images.

So it’s best to leave it OFF. Picture style NEUTRAL. I like to see my colours muted.

It’s just an easier starting point for colour correction. And then: Long exposure Noise reduction OFF, High ISO speed Noise reduction OFF. Noise reduction can be applied in an editing software, if needed.

It’s important to check how it affects the image before deciding whether or not to use it. Too much of it makes pictures look unnatural.

I never use it. Highlight tone priority OFF. Turning this ON corrects your exposure in a way that highlights are pulled back in.

Since I’m always spot metering and checking my exposures all the time it’s no use having it ON. HDR Mode DISABLE HDR.

Don’t like HDR, never did. Now let’s go to the autofocus menu. Here we have different options, which are just a combination of 3 main settings: the

Tracking sensitivity, Accel./decel. Tracking, and AF pt auto switching. So instead of choosing one of these, I go to the custom settings, Configure MY MENU1,

Select items to register and have them here. They are greyed out right now because I have already registered them on my custom menu. I set my Tracking sensitivity to LOCKED ON.

The lower the value, the longer the same subject is tracked, if it leaves the AF point. I choose LOCKED ON because I have my autofocus area set to single point, and I choose one of the 65 focus points as per the composition that I desire and place the eye of the creature

on that point. So I want my focus locked on the eye at all times. Accel./decel.

Tracking, I have it to 1. Canon explains that with 0, stable focus can be achieved on subjects that do not accelerate or decelerate. +1 and +2 are suitable for subjects that move suddenly, accelerate, or

stop. AF pt auto switching, 0. This setting is irrelevant for me because this takes effect with 65 point auto selection,

Zone AF, Large zone af, and af point expansion whereas I’m always on single point. Now this is an interesting setting. AI Servo 1st and 2nd image priority.

This of course is relevant only when you’re using your camera in the burst mode, which I always am, and I always set my autofocus mode to AI SERVO. When it is set to AI SERVO, as long as I have the shutter release button lightly pressed

down, the camera will continue to update the focus all the time. Now with this setting, I decide whether or not my camera should go ahead and take the first picture even if the subject is not in focus when I click it.

Setting the AI Servo 1st image priority to RELEASE means that the camera will record the first image even if the subject is not in focus, whereas if I set the priority on FOCUS, it will get going only once the subject is in focus.

I set both my 1st and 2nd image priority to FOCUS. This may slow me down for a couple of seconds if the camera is not able to lock focus on my subject straight away.

But I’d rather ensure that my subject is in focus than end up with a bunch of out of focus photos. Select AF area select mode > I’m just interested in the single point, and the point within

the point for reasons that I’ve already mentioned. Another interesting setting, Orientation linked AF point. Setting it to Separate AF pts: Pt only means that I can select a different single focus

point when my camera is horizontal and a different point when it’s vertical. So that way I can have different focus points selected when I switch from one orientation to the other.

AF point display during focus, All (constant). That way I see all my focus points so I see where I’m going. Now let’s see the Playback menu.

Highlight alert, Enable, So that I see blinkies when any part of my picture is overexposed Once these settings are in place, I don’t need to change them, ever! Even if I remove my camera battery and don’t put one back for a long time, these settings

won’t change. When I’m clicking birds with a 300 mil F4 lens, I keep my aperture to 4. At 4, I’m letting in all the light that this lens can take in, and at the same time,

I ensure that the background goes completely out of focus. Just have a look at the extent to which the background has gone out of focus in each of these images!

With plenty of light coming in at F4, I can set a lower ISO value. Lower ISO means better image quality. Then all I need to do is balance the shutter speed to match the aperture and ISO combination

for the available light. I use spot metering to help me set the exposure. For these images, I identified the brightest area in the frame, spot metered that area

and then overexposed that spot-metered reading by about two stops. I like to ensure that my shutter speed is at least 1/250th of a second when I’m using this lens.

The guideline for shutter speed is that it needs to be at least 1 over the focal length of the lens. So for this lens it should be around 1/320th of a second, but considering the fact that

the 300 mil lens is not super telephoto and it's small and light, 1/250 works just fine for images like these. If my shutter speed is too slow when the exposure scale is balanced, I will increase the ISO

value and try again. With the exposure in place, I’ll select a single focus point depending on my composition and align that point with the eye of the bird.

And with that, I’m ready to click my pictures. I’m sure you will be able to click much better pictures using your newfound knowledge about the Canon 7D Mark II for bird photography.

I’m Girish Menon please subscribe to my channel to watch a new video every week that will help you to become a better photographer!