I mentioned it already in two of my older posts, I found a bird station with big aviaries along a forest hiking trail. In the big aviaries were different birds that are not or less common in Germany. That’s where I shot a photo of a canary bird and a photo of a golden pheasant. In my current post I want to show you another photo that I shot there, a photo of a zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). I do really prefer to take photos of free birds, not only because it’s better for the birds if they are free, also because it’s a better challenge for the photographer. However, if there are birds in front of you, it’s hard not to take the photo, even if they are captured.
This was one of the moments where I was quite surprised about photography, because I discovered that you can take a photo of a bird in a cage without having much of the grid visible on the photo as you can see in my related posts. That seemed to be possible with a long focal length and if the bird was very close in the foreground and if there was enough distance between the subject and the background. So, I learned how to make the cage invisible in the photo, but to be honest, I can’t explain the science behind it. Anyway, since I have more photos from that day, it might happen that I write a tutorial about it in the future.
Diary of Dennis 
It’s a beauty!
Definitely a beautiful species 🙂
They are lovely little birds aren’t they? Many years ago I had a pair of these as pets but I much prefer them in the wild and have occasionally seen them in my garden along with other types of finches.
I know the trick about wires and grids although like you I don’t really understand the science. David and I used to do this when photographing trains in fenced off railway yards and racing cars where there was safety fencing. I know that you need to zoom in and to be very close to the wire and like magic it disappears.
At first it seemed to be logical, because I am aware that the field of view gets smaller the longer the focal length is. However, then I couldn’t imagine that the field of view is small enough to look through one square of the wire. In the photo with the golden pheasant, you can even still see the squares a little… https://diaryofdennis.com/2016/02/12/beautiful-golden-pheasant/ So, I assume it must be related with both, the field of view and the focussing.
Yes, the zebra finches look cute, but it’s the first time I’ve seen them. We don’t have them here, and they are also not so common pet birds in Germany. Canary birds and budgies for example are more common pets here. There was a sign in front of the cage where they mentioned this is an Australian bird, and I remember that I asked myself that day if you might have seen them in your garden 🙂 Now the question is answered 🙂
Beautiful shot and wonderful bird. Thanks.
Thank you, I am glad you liked this picture 🙂
We don’t have that type a finch here so posting.
We don’t have this one either, I found this bird in a huge cage.
Such beautiful detailing in its feather colours and patterns! 🙂
Yes, this is a very beautiful bird, I find the patterns very interesting too 🙂