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pemmett - The eye
learnin - The Endlessly Fascinating World of Birds
learnin - Gettin' The Babies Off to a Good Start!
gpssue - "Neighborhood Watch"
Summing up You should experiment with different settings and review the results. Takes multiple shots, especially if you are shooting digital, of your subject. Its better to have 5-6 shots of a scene and then to have to choose the best out of that 5-6 than to take one shot and find that your hand had shaken as you took that one shot or that a blade of grass had blown in front of your subject. Learn your tools’ strengths and weaknesses and use them to your advantage. Remember that no matter what tools you use that the most important “tool” you have in your kit is your own vision. Look at the scene and envision what you want to capture and always consider the possibilities it presents or may present in the next few moments. Then apply your tools and talents to the task of capturing your vision. This tutorial is just a scratch on the surface of this topic. I would have to write a book to fully explore all the subjects I have touched upon here to fully cover all the possibilities. If you get the chance I strongly recommend that you try to attend a workshop on wildlife shooting or at the least find more experienced photographers to shoot with and to learn from. You can discuss this and other Wildlife Shooting issues in our
Getting Close to the Wildlife How to get close enough to a subject is always a consideration. How you do it depends a lot on your location. In areas where the wildlife is particularly skittish a blind is effective. You set it up in an area where you know there usually is activity and wait for the subjects to get within shooting range. In your backyard feeders can be used to attract subjects to within shooting range. In the usual situation it’s you in the field trying to get close enough to the subject for a shot. One of the first things to remember is that you cannot sneak up on them. Birds live in a state of total awareness. If they relax they become somebody’s meal. They will know that a 6 foot, 180 pound entity carrying a long metal object is around no matter how sneaky you are. In order to get close to your subject you need to have some knowledge of their behavior and how they respond in different situations. Each species has their own behavior, some are very skittish and others are much more tolerant of humans. You want to appear non-threatening to your subject. Avoid eye contact with it as you approach. Make your approach very, very slowly. Approach gradually over extended intervals. The birds will become used to your presence and their fear of you will be reduced. Don’t approach them on a straight line, zig zag towards them instead. Try to approach when the birds are engaged in some activity such as hunting and/or feeding when their attention is elsewhere. Once you are in a good position stay still and let the birds start to approach your position. Take some time to observe your subjects and study their behavior. Wait for the right time and then take your shot. Remember that the noise of the lens focusing or of the shutter’s release will often be enough to send your subject flying away so you want to make your shot count.
Camera Settings There are no one size fits all camera settings as we all have different styles and preferences when we shoot. I usually use matrix metering and aperture priority when I shoot. I will then make EV adjustments based on the scene. If I’m shooting a white bird, for example, I know that I will probably need an EV adjustment of –0.3 in normal lighting to avoid overexposing the subject. Again you have to view the scene and make a decision about what you want to capture. If you are shooting a subject and you find the background to be distracting you would want to open up the aperture setting to blur the distracting background. If you have your subject against the sky or water, which does not present distractions, or if you want to show the environment of your subject you would step down the aperture to your lens’ “sweet point”. You also should understand the strengths and weaknesses of your lenses. I know that my 300mm and 500mm primes do well when I shoot with the aperture wide open. My 80-400 zoom does not do so well wide open so I will try to step down the aperture setting when I use that lens. Proper exposure is the most important element of an effective capture. Use your histogram and your highlights indicator on your camera. Where possible take a trial shot first and review the histogram. You want to expose to the right as much as possible as long as you are not blowing out the highlights because most of the data points are contained in the first third of the histogram. When you are setting up a shot you should consider the possibilities of the shot. One day I was shooting an egret in the water against a background of dark green vegetation. I was getting a fine exposure w/o any EV adjustments and my shutter speed was at 1/500 so I took a few shots. Suddenly the egret lunged its head into the water and came up with a good-sized frog and I snapped away. When I reviewed my shots the early ones in the sequence were fine but the shots of the lunge and the egret’s capture of the frog were very soft because the 1/500 shutter speed was too slow for the action. If I had been thinking about the possibilities I would have upped my ISO setting until I had a shutter speed of 1/800 of a second or higher. Another time I was shooting an egret in the water and an EV adjustment of –0.3 gave me a perfect exposure. Then the egret took off into the sky and without thinking I just snapped away and nailed some perfectly focused sharp as a tack flight shots. The only problem was that the egret was mostly blown out. I had failed to take into consideration and adjust for the fact that when the egret was in the air it was in brighter light and I needed an EV adjustment of at least –0.7 in that light.
When you are in the field you will usually find that no matter how carefully you plan your shoot that your subjects won’t cooperate. They will find a way to get themselves backlit no matter what you do. Sometimes you will just have to pass on a shot. Then there are times you can use the light that you have. At sunrise or sunset the sky will often have brilliant colors making a silhouette shot of a backlit very effective.
When you are shooting in the stronger light of the midday hours you should use fill flash to reduce the contrast in your shots and to reduce some of the strong shadows cast. A flash extender like the Better Beamer is an excellent addition to your kit. The photo on the left was taken in the late AM right before noon. when the eagle was backlit(you can see the light hitting off its back).
pemmett - The eye
pemmett - The eye
pemmett - The eye
See photo in original gallery.
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