Sean Plunkett took this picture at a hotdog stand at Hull Fair in the early 1970s when he was studying photography at Ealing College in London. It is part of a series of portraits he made of the city in which he grew up that came to light last year when he sent them to a publisher, Café Royal Books. After college, Plunkett had worked in mines in Australia and, for most of his life, as a builder in the UK. None of his pictures had ever been published. A book of his Hull pictures is now out, and another, from a trip he made to Sicily 50 years ago, is planned. Sadly, Plunkett died in the spring, aged 75, of motor neurone disease.

Speaking last week, his son, Leo, also a photographer and film-maker, explained how the pictures had been unknown to the family until Sean started making prints of them a few years ago. “It was funny,” he says, “I’d go to the print lab that I also use, and the people there would see my name and say: ‘Are you any relation to Sean Plunkett?’ They had been printing his pictures and they thought they were incredible.”

He is not sure whether his dad had any regrets in not pursuing his original vocation – “building work is probably a more secure job” – but he suggests he never lost interest in photography, introducing his son to cameras from an early age. He can see his father’s character in the Hull pictures. “He took pictures of things he found funny, or bizarre,” he says. “He was good with people, and he had an ability to get right up in their faces – even with some fairly dodgy looking guys in Sicily.” Leo is planning an exhibition of his dad’s work, and there is a website devoted to it. It’s just a great shame, he suggests, that Sean didn’t live to see the book. “He’d have loved it.”

• Hull 1970s by Sean Plunkett is published by Café Royal Books

Bird photography is one of the most fun things to do in the summer. Using the Panasonic S5 II, you get the benefit of a small full-frame camera with the autofocus algorithms you need to do this kind of work. Couple this with clean high ISO results and a good photographer, and you’ll make lots of great photographs. So here’s why the Panasonic S5 II is so fun to use when photographing birds.

This piece is presented in partnership with Panasonic. We’ve independently and ethically reviewed all the products in this post already without sponsorship. And we worked with them to recommend a few key gems to you.

Recommended Pieces of Gear

Of course, the L-Mount Alliance has a lot of great lenses for bird photography. Give them a try!

Scene Detection Mode

Since they entered the L-mount alliance, Panasonic featured both animal and human detection autofocus. And with the Panasonic S5 II, it combines that with phase detection autofocus. What’s more, it can be applied to almost every single autofocus mode pretty easily. Unlike a few other brands, Panasonic bundles animal and bird detection together — which means you can photograph ravens one moment and catbirds the other moment.

Trust us, this makes it a whole lot easier to photograph birds once you give it a bit more assistance. And it might even help you find birds in the trees with more ease.

Sure, a lot of brands can do this. But no other brand at the moment embraces both full-frame technology and the ability to make your own unique custom LUT profiles and apply them to photos. In this way, you can theoretically make photos from the Panasonic S5 II look like photos from old magazines.

Here are a few other tips on how to make the most of bird photography with the Panasonic S5 II.

The Non-Tech Tips First

Before we dive deeper into bird photography with the Panasonic S5 II, let’s list off a number of bird photography tips:

• Move slow. Loud shoes and fast movement can easily frighten birds. If you have to move fast, be as silent as possible.
• Bring a hat with a visor. Often, you’ll be looking up into the trees. The sun’s rays can be very annoying to your eyes without protection. This is an even more important thing if you wear glasses. Even if you have an anti-reflective coating, the sun’s rays can affect the way you see. With all this said, be sure to also carry a glass cleaner and wipe your glasses down. There’s nothing worse than forehead smears on your glasses enhanced by reflections from the sun.
• Bring bug spray. No one wants to photograph birds when they’re being swamped by mosquitos.
• Silence your smart devices. Not only are they a distraction, but they can sometimes frighten a bird. There’s nothing more annoying than photographing birds and someone trying to call you on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
• Dogs and bikes can also frighten birds. Try to stay away from them.
• Other people will often walk by you and ask if you see anything fascinating when they see you’ve got a big camera and lens. When you’re speaking to them, speak softly and say something along the lines of, “If you’re in the area when I find something, I’ll show you.” Curious people asking you about what camera to buy, and all have really made me miss potentially great photos. But there’s no general need to be stand-offish.
• Bring a water bottle with you. Ideally, it will be refillable.

Keep these in mind as you’re shooting. And now, let’s dive into using the Panasonic S5 II while doing bird photography.

1 Area AF

After you’ve got scene detection dialed in, use the 1 Area AF setting. At least, that’s what I prefer to use because it’s so one of the best options for tracking and finding birds in the wild. Sure, you can use the actual tracking autofocus setting, but 1-Area AF more or less does the same thing. This setting also gives you the best versatility between finding a subject and staying locked onto it. The camera will by default try to find birds throughout the scene, but it’s really tough to do when they’re hiding in trees. You can use this and manual focus override to give it a bit more assistance.

The 1-area AF setting is also consistently the most reliable of the bunch. So that will mean that you’re fiddling with the camera far less.

Pro Tip: The auto-area autofocus won’t always be the best assistance to you. If an American Robin is camouflaged against leaves, the camera won’t be able to know it’s necessarily there. The same goes for it being such a small bird in the scene.

1

When to Use Constant Preview

We know that photographers love using the constant preview setting. But there are situations where you really shouldn’t be using it. Besides draining the camera’s battery, it can affect the autofocus performance speed. I typically shoot in aperture priority when doing bird photography with the Panasonic S5 II. Turning off the constant preview setting can boost the autofocus abilities. However, sometimes, the bird can be backlit, and when it’s obfuscated by the trees, the bird might then be seen as a very dark object by the camera. But if you’re using the constant preview setting or overexposing by around a stop or so, the Panasonic S5 II should be able to see the bird with little extra effort.

Most of the time, I really don’t use the constant preview setting when I’m testing cameras, as I prefer the read the camera’s light meter. This practice also makes you remember to check the ISO settings, aperture, and all. Otherwise, if you see the scene as it will be rendered by the camera, it might just prompt you to shoot the photo. We should, instead, be much more careful.

Why Using the Continuous Autofocus Mode is Essential

One of the biggest features of the Panasonic s5 II is that it’s got phase detection autofocus in the continuous autofocus mode. This can make it better to autofocus in many situations. When doing bird photography with the Panasonic S5 II, always keep it in the AF-C mode. Birds don’t really just stay still. They’re in trees and constantly hunting around for bugs or something else. They’re also constantly looking around for something or another. Even if they’re moving pretty slowly, also consider that the tree branches are moving. Using continuous focus is so much better than constantly hammering the button in AF-S mode.

To be specific here, I’m not really talking about pigeons or mourning doves. But here’s some insight into the movements of various birds:

• House Finches and Sparrows tend to stick around looking at something for only a little bit. They’ll then hop to turn around and look at something else. They’re also always constantly moving their heads around.
• American Robins can sometimes sit very still if they’re overheating. But generally, they’ll even walk on the ground. These birds tend to stick to the trees or ground that’s the same color as they are.
• Woodpeckers are often very skittish
• Gold finches are small and move very fast. Sure, they’re bright. But if the sun is reflecting off of the leaves, then the camera might see them as a bit more yellowish in color. This makes spotting goldfinches that much more difficult to do. Use the 1-area AF setting to help.
• Crows and other blackbirds can be very difficult for any camera to spot. Overexpose the scene to give the camera a bit more assistance.
• White Breasted Nuthatches make very careful, deliberate movements. And they also tend to make similar movements all the time. Photographing them requires patience.
• Cardinals tend to be skittish but far less then woodpeckers. Just give them their space and they’ll be alright.
• Starlings tend to be pretty easy to photograph overall.

At least ISO 1600

When you’re photographing birds with the Panasonic S5 II, go for at least ISO 1600 and use the mechanical shutter. Electronic shutters can have issues with rolling shutter. And when you’re shooting at ISO 1600, you can ensure that you’re getting a fast enough shutter speed to get a crisp photo of the bird. I tend to shoot at around ISO 3200 just in case due to how the aperture can change with a variable zoom lens like the Panasonic 70-300mm or 70-200mm lens.

Follow all these tips, and you’ll see that bird photography with the Panasonic S5 II is super simple.

As Scott Gutterson walks the rocky route to the Kiama Blowhole entrance and climbs down over sharp rocks, he makes the decline to the sea look easy, but it isn’t.

“I’m on a rock ledge here, it’s maybe 4 metres off and goes vertically down 10 metres,” he says.

“I’ll jump in there because I love a little dose of adrenaline to start the swim, but I’m assessing the risks constantly.”

The ex-navy officer of 20 years and ocean swimmer lives in Gerringong on the New South Wales south coast and has been exploring the ocean for the past six years.

The Kiama Blowhole is his favourite spot.

“In the blowhole itself, the water comes in, and obviously everyone’s seen it blow through the hole in the top,” Mr Gutterson says.

“But there’s a chamber in the back of the blowhole and on a flat day, there’s a mini cave in there.”

Mr Gutterson is a self-taught photographer who captures his adventures above and below the waterline using a GoPro camera.

Mr Gutterson documents his free dives, especially at the blowhole, where there are a couple of resident stingrays.

He says the first time he went to the bottom of the blowhole he found a couple of bronze statues.

He has also found fishing rods, hats, a pushbike and money.

From below

Mr Gutterson enjoys listening to the sounds in the blowhole.

“When you actually hear it go below the waterline at the bottom, it’s like a depth charger going off and it’s amazing,” he says.

As a member of the Werri Point Swimmers group, Mr Gutterson says it’s important people are comfortable in the ocean and know their limitations.

As an emergency services worker, he’s been involved with rescues at the blowhole.

“I don’t ever put myself in the situation where I’m putting other people at risk.

“If I can’t get out of the blowhole when it’s a big swell, Plan B takes me to Storm Bay.

“Plan C is to swim around the headland and go into the harbour.”

Dangers of sea caves

Surf Life Saving NSW CEO Steve Pearce warns swimmers it’s not safe to go near the blowhole.

“The Kiama Blowhole and surrounding area has been synonymous over the years with numerous drowning fatalities involving major rescues of both swimmers and rock fishermen who have been swept off the rocks or caught in the water due to large swells developing,” he says.

“We would never encourage anyone, regardless of the conditions, to swim in and out of sea caves because you just don’t know what situation could arise that could present a danger to you, and in turn present a danger to all those first responders who would have to come to your assistance.”

World’s biggest blowhole

Kiama Council’s Sally Bursell says more than a million people visit the blowhole each year.

“It runs best on a south-easterly swell, and can get as high as 30m,” she says.

Historian Malcolm Bedford volunteers at the Pilots Cottage Museum at Blowhole Point. He’s lived in Kiama so long now he rarely visits the blowhole, which is 200 metres away.

“It’s bigger than the ones in Hawaii as the opening in the rock is 2.6 metres.”

Mr Bedford says that over the years, 25 people have died at the blowhole.

“Not many people drowned in it, they drowned on the rocks around it, where they come to have a look,” he says.

When there were no fences around the blowhole, you could do whatever you wanted to.

“You could go right down to the edge and look in. You could throw things in, and you could dive in, and that had really bad consequences,” Mr Bedford says.

Town rubbish dump

From 1859 to 1939, the blowhole was used as the town rubbish dump.

“Residents threw dead cows, dead horses and butcher’s shop waste into the blowhole, and of course the sharks loved it,” Mr Bedford says.

Sunday afternoon shark feeding sessions were a regular activity for locals, who enjoyed the event as much as the 20-foot-long (6-metre-long) shark named Big Ben, who frequented the blowhole for more than two decades.

These days, it’s standing room only at the blowhole on weekends.

“It’s … a great vantage point to see whales,” Ms Bursell says.

And Mr Gutterson’s photos from inside the blowhole’s chamber offer another perspective.

“To see it [the blowhole] from underneath as well, it provides a whole other story about the ecosystem, creatures living and breathing underneath the viewing platform, which is amazing,” Ms Bursell says.