How you can think like a wildlife photographer

In my wildlife photography tips podcasts, I always recommend that people practice on birds. But why should they do that?

Well, for one thing, most of us have access to these wild animals and they allow us to get to know our cameras.

Photographing birds is also an opportunity to start thinking like a wildlife photographer: 

• Where is the best lighting? 
• How can I position myself to get the best shots? 
• What influences the animals' behaviour? 
• How important is time of day?

These are just a few of the questions you should be asking yourself.

When it comes to using your camera, have you thought about whether back-button focus is appropriate? 
How can you get your camera's auto-focus system to work most efficiently? 
What shutter speed should you use? Are you shooting RAW?

I go through a number of these options and issues in the podcast. In some cases, there will be conflicting opinions about which option is best in certain situations. In those cases, I suggest you do what is most comfortable for you. The most important thing is for you to be shooting images you love and for you to continue to experiment with and evolve your photography. 

I hope you enjoy it.

It's time for another podcast...

Transcript

>> Speaker A: 0:17

If you've listened to any of my podcasts about photographing wildlife, whether it's tips, planning, anything like that, one of the things that I always recommend is that you practice before you go. And a good subject to work with is birds. And the obvious reasons for that are that birds are pretty much everywhere. So unless you're somewhere in the middle of Antarctica or at the North Pole, the chances are that you can step outside and there are birds around. So you've got a subject that is available. They're also wild animals, so they will do their thing, which is also the kind of subject you want to be practicing with. They also have certain characteristics, and I want to talk about the kind of thought process to go through, before you go and photograph your, more exotic, let's say, subject. So birds, again, are very good for that. So, having said all of that, what I thought I would do in this podcast is actually dive into that a little more and talk about what are the things you perhaps want to think about before you go off and photograph birds, because these are the things that will help you get into the right kind of mindset for photographs. Photographing, wild animals, doing wildlife photography. So without more ado, I'll get into, there are really two parts to this, and the first is to think about your subject and how can you stack things to give you the best possible result when you're taking photographs. So, talking specifics here, think about how you position yourself in terms of the sun and in terms of where the wind's coming from. So ideally, you want to have both the sun and the wind at your back. And the reason, and there's reasons for this, which I shall now explain. So, obviously, with having the sun at your back, you've got lighting, going straight onto your subject, which should give you the best chance of getting a good exposure. Now, I would suggest that you treat this as a starting point, because as you get better by getting, photographs from this kind of perspective, you might want to experiment by changing position and looking at having light on your subject from different positions, whether it's from the side. You might even try backlighting, but anything you can think of, really. But I do recommend that you start with something that's kind of stacked to give you the best possible results, because that will encourage you to try more things. It's much easier to start getting good results early on, and then that gives you that confidence to start experimenting and pushing the limits a little bit. Whereas if you start to struggle from the beginning, you're not really going to experiment because it's just really hard to get a basic shot that is, a much more difficult place to come from and persevere and get good shots. So do start with things, do make it as easy as possible yourself, for yourself to start with, and then go from there. So that's why you would have the sun behind you and also with the wind behind you. This is where you start thinking about how your subject is behaving. So birds prefer to fly into the wind. And the reason for that is it gives them more lift. It actually makes flying much easier. And if you, want to compare that to airplanes, if you know anything about airplanes, you'll know that generally they will take off and land into the wind. And the reason they do that is that you've got an airspeed over the top surface of the wing that gives them lift. So it means that the aircraft itself can be flying much more slowly and still get a lot of lift. if it's flying into the wind, if it's flying with the wind behind it, that's where you've got the lowest possible lift. So that basically the aircraft has to be flying much, much faster, in terms of, air speed to get the same amount of lift. I hope, this is making some sense. But basically flying into wind, the wind's adding lift to what you're putting in yourself. And birds will do that because it's a much easier way to fly. It's much more energy efficient for them. So knowing that you want to have them flying towards you because that gives you nicer angles, it means just looking at their head for a start and not their tail. unless you're doing, a collection of, you know, the back end of birds, for example, you really want to be shooting the head and ideally focusing on the eye. And if you think, and if you also think about it, they'll tend to fly slower. And that makes it much easier for you to keep focused on them, to start experimenting with different shots. One extreme of that, and it's something that I see here in, France when farmers have cut their fields and also when I've, been cutting my grass in the garden sometimes there are certain birds and they. Look, I know I'm not a bird person, so they're hawks of some sort. But basically they're the birds that prey on small mammals. So, moles, mice, small animals like that, what they will tend to do. And this is where observing behavior comes in. And this is, this is actually very relevant so what they'll tend to do is pretty much hover in the air over certain points. They'll tend to stick their face into the wind, because if there is wind, but if there is wind, it's that air is flowing over their wings. So it's much, much easier for them to hold a stable position over the ground. And what they're doing up there is having a good look around, basically looking for lunch. So once you start to think about the behavior of the animal, it starts to give you clues about how to photograph them, and the kind of photographs you can expect to get. Now, obviously, the bird's going to be moving around as it does that. It will fly over one spot, hover for a bit, then fly over somewhere else. So there is an element of knowing a bit more about what drives that behavior. And in knowing that, you can set yourself up for the shot. So if you know that a farmer is cutting the hay or whatever it is in their field that they're getting rid of, and you know that these birds of prey will follow some particular time after that, maybe when the farmer's gone, or even if they're in another part of the field, depending on, how comfortable they are around people, it means, you know, when you need to get yourself in a position to get that shot. And this is really the essence of wildlife photography. It's why you do research. It's why I emphasize that point when I'm talking about wildlife photography. Once you research the animal you want to photograph, you will get a lot of information and a lot of clues that will help you to be in the right spot at the right time. So that's the first thing. What's the position of the sun? How do you position yourself so you've got the best lighting? And then related to behavior or a certain behavior, where do you need to be in relation to the wind? Now, and I would say, actually, while I'm talking about the wind, it's pretty much, the opposite situation if you're on the ground tracking an animal, because you want the wind in your face. Because that way, if the animal is then ahead of you, your scent is being blown away from the animal. So in that scenario, you actually want the wind in completely the opposite position. So these are things that you really need to start thinking about if you're going to get good at photographing wildlife. So the next thing, are there certain routes that the birds will fly? It might be that they nest in a particular place. They tend to fly over certain areas for to look for prey or whatever else it might be, or it might be around sunset, they roost in a particular tree. So if that's something that's reasonably predictable, then think about that. How do you position yourself around that tree to get the best shot? So timing is really important. And it might be timing on a daily basis, that kind of behavior, or it might be on a wider basis. For example, migrations. And I often use the humpback whale migration past Sydney. So between May and November, typically, although I gather the season slipping a little bit, but you will see humpback whales going past Sydney. And the reason they're going past is that in autumn, as it's getting colder, so down in Antarctica where the humpback whales spend the summer, it starts getting colder down there. So they'll head north eventually up to Queensland, because that's where they mate, that's where they give birth. And they like to give birth and warm rewards because baby whales don't have much blubber on them. And it's, then time for them to feed up, get more blubber on as they head south. And by the time they hit the waters of Antarctica in the summer months, where it's warmer down there anyway. But they're also, you know, blubbered up, to use a phrase. So think about the. On a sort of annual scale, I guess, you know, are there certain behaviors you're looking at and they need to be there at certain times of year, or you need to be aware that these behaviors only happen in a particular place at a certain time of year. So this again is thinking about timing and routes. if you're trying to photograph predator, well, where do the prey animals go? They're going to go get water, probably. So that's why water holes are very popular in places like Africa. And if you go to an expensive hotel, or not even such an expensive one, if you go to certain places, there's often a water hole that's lit up at night so you can see what's going on. And, that might work for you. one of the things about that, I'm just going to say that while I think about it, if you are photographing, in a water hole at night, that can give you quite an interesting shot because you're subject, even if it's just drinking, is likely to be quite well lit by the lighting that they put around these places. But immediately behind it is likely to be very dark, particularly if you've exposed your, shot for the animal's face. And it's well lit, then you're going to find that pretty much everything else is quite dark. So that gives you a particular look. You've also got the option perhaps to use reflections and that can give you cool photographs. So I just threw that in there while I thought about it and I'll now get back to what I was going to talk about. But this is the kind of thing to start thinking about, you know, that does give you a particular shot, but you can only get it at a certain time in a certain place because there are certain conditions, in effect. Okay. And then the other thing when you're photographing birds is, first of all, I recommend you shoot them against the sky. And the reason for that is it makes focusing much simpler. And you need to get on top of how the focusing, the auto, focusing the autofocus system, particularly on your camera works because you really got to need, you really got to know that to get shots that are, in focus. There are other things too to get them sharp. But, if they're not in focus, you're not going to get them sharp. So that's an absolutely critical thing to get on top of. As you get more confident, start to shoot the birds with other things in the background. Now, initially that might be something in the distant background. So it might be trees, for example, it could be houses, but something that's a long way off. So that you can work with using depth of field and make sure your background is out of focus. But it does provide context to the animal, which, you know, a sky, just a blue sky or even a cloudy sky doesn't really do. But, if you've got some background there that starts providing context, it starts adding to the story of that bird. It's, talking about where it lives, the environment it's operating in. And then as you get really good at it, you can look at picking a bird out with background and foreground objects in there. And that's where you can really start experimenting with your composition. Now, you might not do that with a bird in flight. You might depends on where you are. you might change your position so you're shooting down on the bird so you've got more of that background situation happening. This is what I want you to start thinking about. Start with something easy so you get really familiar m not only with, the bird itself, but also how your camera is operating, how good you are at operating the camera. Because that's the other critical point. And that's the whole reason to practice to get really Good. And then make it more difficult for yourself. Start, start to stretch yourself technically and your ability to use the camera and what's. But it will get you to learn which settings work best in different situations. And you'll know how to SW settings very quickly however you do that on your camera. But this is the real purpose of doing this kind of photography. So I'm going to talk now about the camera settings themselves and just a few things to think about. Now. If you read different things, if you Google things on the web or listen to people or read articles or whatever, they will probably recommend one way or another of doing things. And that's perfectly fine. I'm not particularly going to do that. I'm going to tell you what I use. Other people have a different opinion and what it really comes down to is what are you most comfortable with and what gives you the results, that you're happiest with. And I think that's the critical thing because we all work slightly differently. Some of us will prefer one way of doing things, others prefer another way. And if you're getting really good shots, it doesn't matter what your, which method you're using. If you're getting that result, it's basically saying that the method you're using is the right method for you. And that's really what I want to emphasize. And this is another reason for practicing because you can try different ways of doing things and you may well find that one method is much better for you. You're much more comfortable with it than another. So the first thing is where you're setting your focus. And some people. So the default on a camera, if you don't know, is when you press the shutter button halfway down. That by default will set the exposure on the subject and it will set the autofocus distance and what it uses to do that depends on how you set the camera both for your, the aperture so the exposure settings. So you need to look at what you've got on your camera. You need to understand how that's working. But having done that, you probably don't need to change it. but the shutter speed you, that's something. Or how the autofocus is set. That's something that you will definitely need to think about and that looks at the number of autofocus points that you're using now. Most cameras, and again you've got to look at what you've got will have, will start with a general zone. So it's generally an area kind of around the Middle part of the, viewfinder. But it's actually a good area within the viewfinder. So it might be as much as two thirds of the area of the viewfinder sets up, a general zone. And the autofocus just tries to focus on something in that zone. That may well be how your camera was set on default. What you'll also find is that there are loads of little squares. they might be in little groups of nine or 16. And you'll see those as a pattern. They basically work around the center of the viewfinder. So you won't generally find things out on the edges of the viewfinder. But definitely in the central area, you will have options as to which of those points and what combination of points you use, or even the general zone. So if that's starting to sound confusing, you definitely need to Google it. But you definitely need to understand this on your camera. So maybe have a look at the camera manual. you know, heavens forbid. But there you go. Now, what I do, I generally use a single autofocus point in the center the viewfinder. That's what I will generally use for my autofocus. And that will work well if the subject is of a reasonable size within the viewfinder. What I mean by that is it's relatively easy to get a good focus on it. Now, the other thing I do, though, and this comes back to the button that you use. I use a thing called back button focus. And the reason for that is I actually tend to use it more for birds, although some people actually recommend you don't. But again, it's, you know, horses, of course, it's. So back button focus is where you reprogram the camera to use one of the buttons on the back of the body. So again, depending on the camera you're using, you might find there's a little row, maybe three or so little buttons on the back of the camera body. And you can reprogram those on some cameras or some of those buttons. And on the Canon cameras that I use, I can reprogram one of those to be the, button I use to set my focus. And I prefer to do that so that it's different. It's separate to my exposure. So I'll get my exposure right by pressing the shutter, button halfway down. But I'll set focus by using the back button. And I use my thumb to do that. Now, some people don't like that because it does, it does take a bit of practice to get, comfortable with that. I've, been doing it A long time now, so I just do it automatically. But it means that I can reset my focus without resetting the exposure. And it also means I can set my focus and then recompose things in the viewfinder and then press the shutter button. I'm not resetting the focus at that point. So basically I've separated setting focus from taking the photograph. And, that for me works really well. what you may need to do is if your subject is getting harder to, get a single button on a single AF point on, because that point is very small in the viewfinder. And it can be quite hard to get that onto a, subject if the subject is very small, just getting one specific point onto that subject if the subject is moving. And if the subject's moving, it means your camera is moving, which means you might be wobbling a bit. So that will makes, it more difficult. So in that situation, you might want to think about using a group of af points, and that might be nine points or 16, or you may even think about using a zone. So this is where I'm going to hand it over to you to experiment with that, because it means you're going to get to learn how your autofocus system works on your camera, if you don't already know that. And then you're going to start picking certain setups that work in certain scenarios. And by practicing with those scenarios, you can switch from one to the other as you need to. And the only way you really get good at that and get to understand that is by using it. So at this point I hand it over to you and enjoy experiment, but really get to know your camera. I can't do more than tell you that is what you need to be thinking of. Now, another thing, to do when you're using your autofocus on your camera now, you're probably using a telephoto lens when you are photographing birds. I use a telephoto for wildlife. I use my 100 to 400. And you might not have quite that range, but you certainly want a long telephoto to, have any chance of getting in close to the animal. And often when you're photographing the animal, you're already some distance away. So this is where you need to learn how to use a combination of optical zoom, which you do on the lens, and then digital zoom that you do once you've taken the photograph. And this is one of the reasons, excuse me, that I recommend you always shoot raw, because a raw image gives you it's like the negative in the old, film data, well, films coming back apparently. So it's like using a negative, but the RAW file has all of the information that has been captured by the sensor. If you are shooting in jpeg, you've already lost a lot of detail. And the reason why RAW is more important is that it gives you a much better optical zoom, sorry, digital zoom capability. And digital zoom M is simply where you zoom into the image, but what you're doing is pulling the pixels that make up that image. You're pulling them apart and unless you're using some additional software, like Gigapixel AI for example, which is one I use, you're not adding any detail to that image. So you're losing resolution as you zoom in further. So it does mean that given a certain size of RAW image, there is a limit to how far you can zoom in and still get a sharp enough and a high enough resolution for the purpose that you're going for. All right, I've kind of labored that a little bit. But there is a reason for that. If you just want to put something on social media, you can actually get away with quite a low resolution image. If you want to print the photograph and put it on the wall and maybe it's a one or a two or even a zero, size, so they're the standard metric sizes, then you really have to have to think long and hard about your, the resolution you've got. So, okay, but you're using a telephoto, you use an optical zoom. Think about digital zoom shooting RAW because that will give you the best digital zoom. To help the autofocus system though, on the lens that I have, I actually have a switch which tells it, which basically allows me to cut out or stop the camera trying to focus on things that are close to me. So the switch allows me to choose between a 1.8 meter minimum focus and infinity or 6.5 meters in infinity. So if I know that I'm not going to be shooting anything basically less than six and a half meters from me, then I'll just flip the switch so that the AF only works and only tries to focus on objects that are ah, six and a half m meters or further away. So that just cuts down a bit of unnecessary hunting that you might end up with, if you, if you're using a longer zoom. So you want, you really want to minimize the work that the camera is doing because often you want to be getting these photographs fast. You've got to be shooting on them fast, and it's not going to be a fast acquisition if the camera's hunting, if the AF system is hunting to try and find the subject. So with that in mind, what I also do is try and pre focus on where my subject is likely to be. Now, I could do that manually if I just know that it's somewhere less than infinity but a long way off. I'm going to basically wind the lens up to infinity and then pull it back a little bit. Or if you want to keep the autofocus system running, just pick a point that's roughly, it doesn't have to be precise, but just very roughly the sort of distance away from the lens that your subject is going to be. So that might be a tree, it might be some grass or whatever, but just find something that's roughly that distance away, focus on that, and then when you point the camera at the bird that you're photographing, you're already kind of close to the focus. So the AF is going to lock on very quickly and it isn't hunting. And obviously this applies if you're shooting other animals, not just birds, but any subject. So you want to minimize the acquisition speed for the autofocus because things might be over very quickly. In the case of a, humpback whale, breaching that's completed in within a couple of seconds. So what you don't do is spend the first second or so having the camera, the AF system, hunting to try and find where the whale is, because by the time it's found the whale, the whale's just disappeared into a big splash of water and that probably wasn't the shot you were going for. So do learn a bit more about your AF system and look at how you can get it working faster and how to get it to lock onto, the subject as quickly as possible. And if you've got AF tracking of any sort, start working with that as well. Get to know that, get to know how it works and how to get the best from it. Okay. Another thing, to just reduce the workload on the camera is to turn off image stabilizer. the reason I say that is if you're photographing birds, you want to be using a very fast shutter speed. So you definitely want to be, you don't want to be less than 1,000th of a second. You really want to be 1, 2, 500th of a second or even faster, maybe as fast as, one that's 3200th of a second or 4000th of a second, whatever it is. But those are the kind of shutter speeds you need to be running with. At that speed, image stabilizing won't make any difference because image stabilizing works at lower shutter speeds. So you can just turn it off. It's just another overhead that you have running on the camera that you don't need. And it also starts to get you thinking about the mode that you want to be in. Do you need to be in manual to get that kind of shutter speed and get a correct exposure? In my experience, probably not. But it doesn't do any harm. To understand how manual works and to perhaps play with manual, I would generally go in either a shutter speed, priority, which is tv, time variable on Canon, so shutter speed priority, if that's where I want to go. Or I'll use the aperture and vary that because I'm controlling my depth of field with that. But make sure that the aperture that I'm running with is wide enough that I'm going to get that fast shutter speed. And that combination of aperture and ISO, allows me to get that kind of shutter speed. I do like to play with depth of field because, I do want my subject to be nice and sharp, but I want the background out of focus to some extent. And if you are shooting against a background, that will determine what sort of depth of field you can get it you want to be using. Now as a starting point, I'll start with around an F8 because generally, F8, it's the midpoint, it's the middle of the aperture range really. And that's generally where lenses will give you the best performance. If you've got a professional lens, you should get pretty good. It should be pretty even performance across the whole aperture range. If it's a less expensive lens, then definitely sit around the middle because you may find that the sharpness and the performance of the lens drops off as you start pushing the aperture one way or the other. So if you're trying to get down to let's say an F2, if it goes to that kind of aperture, on a low performance lens, you're not going to get such good performance. Frankly, this giving you F2, you're probably on a better lens anyway. And if you're using the pro lens, I would definitely play with F2. so again this is where the experimentation comes in because at F2 you've got a very narrow depth of field and that can give you Give you some really, great results if you have both foreground and background, objects, let's say, to, deal with. So that shutter speed. I've also kind of implied, knowing the exposure triangle. Frankly, if you don't understand the exposure triangle, understand it because it is really important. And you, if you don't understand it, you're basically stuck with auto all the time. And I think there is. Your options for creativity get extremely limited. You're basically looking at composition, whereas once you understand how that works, you've opened up the capability of the camera. You can explore the limits of what your camera will do, and it will challenge you as a photographer to start pushing your envelope and get some really amazing results. Okay, so, I've spoken about different AF points, how to do that, how to. Excuse me, pre focus. Another small thing is if you are using a telephoto, it may well have a ring on it with a shoe that allows the lens to attach to a tripod. this again, is what's comfortable for you. And there are some schools of thought on that. So I tend to use it with the shoe in the lower position. So the position it would be in, if you want to stick it on a tripod, because I'm happy with that, I can work with that. It's not a problem. Other people like to have that shoe flipped to the up position and have their hand on the lens itself. Honestly, look, whatever works for you is, is fine. again, it comes back to the results you're getting. If they're good, then whatever you're doing is fine. But again, I think this is, to me, it's personal choice. Others may well argue with me, but that's all, good. Now, another thing to remember is that if the bird is moving across you, and this is also the case with certain animals, you know, if you're tracking a, predator that's chasing down prey, the chances are you're going to be moving, from left to right or right to left, but you're going to be pivoting. So practice pivoting with your body. So pivot from. I tend to pivot from the waist. and the reason I do that, it means that my arms, I can tuck my elbows into my body. And that bit of me doesn't change position at all. So my arms, and therefore the camera is not changing relative to me. So that all that's moving. I'm pivoting from the waist. So I'm basically panning from left to right, right to left, whatever I need to be doing. So just practice doing that because you may well have to do it in anger. and it needs to be just second nature. If you're pivot, if you're trying to move the camera itself and follow, you're kind of losing or the chances are you're losing stability. Not, so important at fast shutter speeds. But if you're working at lower, shutter speeds, that's likely to be the case. And also you might start changing the position of your eye against the viewfinder or rel relative to the screen. The, viewfinder is the more important one because then your composition might go out of whack and you're not aware of it. another thing to remember, when you are doing that is to just get in the habit of. They call it bounce focusing, but it's just basically resetting the focus regularly. And whether it's back button focus or you're using standard focus, do just reset the focus regularly, just to make sure that your subject stays in focus. Now with some of the newer cameras, they've got really smart tracking, really smart AF tracking. And if that's good enough to keep the focus locked on your subject, then that's fine. Get familiar with that and make sure you use it. But if you don't have that, then just get in the habit of refocus, refocusing periodically. And periodically might be every couple of seconds or less, depending on how things are moving relative to you. Okay, so I've run through a few things there to think about and I guess to quickly summarize, first of all, do your research, or just observe. But you know, get, get into that sort of wildlife photographer's mindset of what is the animal doing? Where, ah, do I need to be to get shots and what are the shots I'm going for? So get into that way of thinking. But you start doing that by doing research on the animal, even if it's looking out of the window from time to time and having a look at what the birds are doing. I've spoken about, the AF systems, getting to know your AF system, whether you use back button focus or standard focus. I've spoken a bit about exposure triangle. I spoken about knowing your kit. So can you cut out close focus, using raw, so that there's sort of basics that really, in my opinion it's important to know if you're going to get good results, consistently good results in your photography. So if any of that is new, then I really recommend that you at the very least, Google it. But, if a lot of it's new and you're really not sure about a lot of things I've been talking about, then do get a course. So obviously I have a course. There are other ones out there. But I think it's really important because if you step back and take that time to really, invest in yourself and your photography, and you don't have to be a professional to do that, just, you know, anybody taking photographs, if you want to start producing results that you really like and the people that you share them with, really enjoy, then do take the time to invest in a course that will help you to get the understanding you need to then go off and experiment. And, something I've said before is that it's all very well breaking the rules, but it is important to know which rules you're breaking. And if you know which rules you're breaking, that equals consistency. If you don't know what you're breaking, that's potluck. So I think on that note, I will leave it there. But I hope you found that useful. And good luck photographing birds. Bye for now. Just before I go, I wanted to remind you that first, of all, I have an offer running, with, my free download. So if you go onto the website and there's a link at the bottom of the description of this particular podcast, and that will take you to a link, to where you can give me your email, I will send you, a PDF which is 10 Simple Steps to improve your photography today. So it includes the kind of things that I talk about in the podcast. So it's all there in black and white with some examples. You can see what's going on. And also remember, I offer online photography courses. I do fine art. If you haven't m checked out my galleries, please do. The links are again below the description of the podcast. And don't forget to help me out. So you're welcome to subscribe over to the podcast and you can become a member of my Patreon membership and, join me there. So in that membership you get access, to me, and also you get advance notice of things that are coming up. I'll tell you about other things that are going on that I don't share in my Facebook group or on Instagram or anywhere else really. So it is, just a membership where if you like what I do and you just want to be a part of it, the subscriptions are really low. It's just a cup of coffee a month. So, how much better could I be than that? So, please take a look, and, I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now.