If you want to improve your wildlife photography, photographing birds is a perfect way to practice. They are beautiful, small, fast-moving and provide lots of photographic opportunities.
Know your camera settings and work off of automatic. If you don't feel comfortable in full manual mode, use a semi-automatic mode. I recommend shutter priority for action (birds or otherwise). This will allow you to set your shutter speed (at least to 1/400 second depending on lens and camera body) and your camera will choose the aperture for proper exposure.
With fast moving subjects, I will take as fast as a shutter speed I can get without going too high with my ISO. However, with the newer cameras now (I use the Nikon Z6 and Z7) I will increase my ISO to levels I never thought possible. Everyone has their preference and limit as to how high to go with ISO settings.
Auto-ISO is also an option, especially if you want to practice photographing wildlife or motion without worrying about your exposure (other than shutter speed). I would recommend setting a limit as to how high your ISO goes to, based on what you prefer (taking into consideration the higher ISO the more grain you get).
- Michelle Valberg, Photographer-in-Residence | 