In my post How To Prepare For and Get The Most Out Of Your Bird Tour I made the point that occasionally you are inside a vehicle when a bird is spotted and you have to shoot from where you are seated. Aside from the obvious issues such as shooting through dirty windows or not having enough room to fully extend the zoom lens, a less-obvious problem is that the vehicle is vibrating as the motor runs. I usually talk to the driver at the start of the tour and ask them to turn off the engine when stopped for a bird – sometimes they can’t (traffic), sometimes they remember and sometimes they need a reminder. Here are a couple of shots from my recent trip to South Africa demonstrating the before (motor running) and after (motor stopped). The difference is obvious.
Here’s a Green Pigeon taken in Kruger National Park. Note the softness of this picture because the motor was running.
The motor was turned off and 20 seconds later I took this shot. As you can see it is much sharper.
Next, a female Southern Red Bishop taken at the Kliphop Salt Pans. It was a hot day so some heat wave distortion was present but the motor was running and that contributed to the softness of the image.
The vehicle pulled forward a bit and stopped with the motor off. Here’s the same bird with no motor vibration. Again, much sharper.
Of course the “motor off” rule applies when you go out car birding. Shut off the engine before taking a shot – it will turn out better.
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Huge difference!