Mastering Wildlife Photography Part 4: How to Freeze Fast Action in Wildlife Photography

In this episode, we'll take a look at the best ways to capture fast-moving action.

• The Challenge of Wildlife Action Shots  
• Camera Settings for Freezing Motion
• Anticipating the Action
• Panning & Tracking
• Gear Considerations
• Creative Motion Choices

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Next time, we’ll talk about how to handle harsh environments.

Check out my PDF “A Brief Guide to Wildlife Photography” for more ideas.

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Transcript

>> Graham: 0:08

Foreign welcome back to, the podcast. So we've reached episode four in this mini series where we're taking a deep dive into wildlife photography. Last time we looked at how we can use light and the importance of light at different times of day in different weather conditions. And in this podcast I'm going to take you through how to freeze action, when it happens, fast action. Because I think for most people, while, while it's nice to see portraits of animals and that kind of thing, the real drama and the real excitement happens when something is happening. And it will typically be a predator, chasing down a prey animal or a humpback whale breaching, something like that, those more dramatic events and some of them don't happen that often. So if you do have the opportunity to photograph something like that, it may well be your only opportunity. So you want to make the most of it, you want to come back with a good result. So that's what we'll be looking at now. the thing about wildlife movement is often it happens very suddenly. a lot of the time it can be quite unpredictable. other times you can see it coming, but you've got to be ready. So, for example, if you see say a big cat, tracking some prey it might have spotted, something it fancies for lunch, and it will tend to move quite slowly and deliberately, keeping out of sight, keeping downwind of the prey animals so the prey animal doesn't know it's there. And things like lions have to get in pretty close before they can take down an animal, because they don't have the duration for, a long run after a prey animal. Something like a cheetah is better built for that. And I have seen a cheetah take down an impala. And of course the prey animals themselves, most of them can run pretty fast. So it's quite an exciting thing to see because it's not something you're likely to see that often unless you live in those areas. So what are the real challenges? Well the first one is just seeing the event coming and being ready for it. And secondly, there's a good chance that light distance and also the speed are ah, all working against you. So it's really important that you anticipate as much as you can. So in terms of light, you may not be able to control your position in terms of where the animal is and how that light is on the animal. So the position of the sun, whether it's behind the animal or behind you, wherever it is, often you, you may not be driving the vehicle if you're, if you're in a vehicle, often with vehicles, and this is also true of boats, there are certain rules about where they can and can't go. So you may well find that that's a bit limiting. The other thing is, obviously with the distance, you need a way of closing that distance without physically closing the distance. And then as I say, things can happen pretty fast and, and you need to be able to shoot in such a way that you capture the action, as you want it. So we're going to go through that now. some of the things, the more detailed things to, think about here. So first of all, with camera settings, shutter speeds, you want to have pretty fast. When I'm teaching photography, I, usually talk about hundreds, of a second will have some blurring in them. If something's moving quite quickly, as soon as you go into thousandths of a second, you begin to freeze the action, pretty much so that it stops completely. So as an example for birds in flight, you might want to be 1, 1000th of a second or even slightly faster if it's very fast action. And this could be a, predator running or certainly humpback whales, I would shoot at at least 1 2,000th of a second and possibly even faster. And that freezes everything. So in the case of whale, it will not only freeze the animal itself, but it will freeze the water droplets. And the other thing to bear in mind with that kind of scen, not only do you need a fast shutter speed to freeze the animal, but you have to remember that if you're on a boat that's moving, so what you're standing on is already moving. The chances are, you're having to pivot and turn to get onto the animal. I have had my camera pointing in exactly the right spot and watched a, whale break the surface. But that doesn't happen very often. Usually they'll pop up somewhere where you're expecting them, but not in the exact place. So you have to move to get onto the animal. Which means that basically you're, you're trying to freeze the action in a scenario where everything's moving. So obviously that means that you need to have a much faster shutter speed. So obviously in terms of exposure triangle, you'll need to make sure that if you're prioritizing, prioritizing shutter. So either, shutter speed priority or time variance TV is what you'll find on Canon, you need to make sure that your aperture and Your ISO allow you to shoot at the speed you need in the conditions you're shooting in now. Burst mode continuous shooting, those also are really useful in these situations. I in with the cameras I use, so I'm using a couple of Canon DSLRs at the moment and EOS, 5DS and any of 7D Mark II. basically with those I have them in high speed continuous mode when I'm shooting wildlife. I use them a long time now. So it's very easy for me to just be very gentle with the shutter button and only shoot one or two frames at a time if that's what I want to do. But I'm in the right shooting mode if I just want to push that shutter down and hold it so that I'm now shooting as many frames as I can shoot of whatever's going on. So that's one aspect of it. However, the other thing you need to remember is writing to your storage or onboard storage and another factor that will affect that is the size of the image you're shooting. So I'm going to talk about in another episode what you do with the images you've shot. But it is worth thinking about what you plan to do with your images once you get back from your trip, if it is a trip. So if you're only planning to use them separately, social media, that means relatively low resolution JPEGs will be fine. if you want to do a photo book then you definitely need something that can be printed at a decent resolution to three. hundred dots per inch is magazine quality printing, resolution. And if you want to blow them right up and have wall art, then you really need to be shooting with the biggest file size, the biggest image size that you can. So two things there. One is to always be shooting in raw, not jpeg. Shooting RAW, you can always convert to JPEG later but it gives you a lot more flexibility and we'll talk about post processing in another episode. the other thing to remember is shooting is shoot the biggest file that your camera will allow you to shoot. So a lot of cameras somewhere in the menus depends on what camera you're using. But you'll be able to set the file size. So you want to go for maximum file size raw. That gives you, it's like having the highest resolution negative for those who remember print photography which is making a comeback. So hopefully lots of people can relate to that. But it's like having a really big negative and the bigger the negative the more detail you've got on it. And that's exactly the same with large file sizes. You're using the maximum. You're basically taking all of the data that the sensor in your camera can acquire, while it's exposed to light. So you want to really stack that as much in your favor as you can. Now the downside to that is that it might limit the speed of burst. So I definitely have that with my, EOS 5Ds. If I'm doing a burst of a humpback M whale breaching, and I've got it set up the way I've described, I might be limited to a couple of seconds and then it kind of pauses while it's writing to the cards and then it will start up again. That isn't ideal. It's okay for a humpback whale breach, but things like dolphins, which move very fast, it's not m. It's too slow. I can't afford the pauses. So this is where something like the EOS 7D, Mark II comes in. Because that isn't a full frame sensor. The EOS 5Ds is a full frame. the EOS 7 is a cropped sensor. So it's basically a smaller file. And that will just keep on running as long as I've got the finger down pretty much. So think about all of those things and practice with them. If you're not sure, just see what happens with your camera, while you're, you know, basically pushing it to the limit in terms of how fast it can acquire images. Now another thing that you really need to be aware of when you're shooting wildlife is your autofocus system. So most systems will have a minimum of two settings. One will be something that might be referred to as one shot. it will depend on the manufacturer. But basically you push the shutter down, you put it halfway down and the autofocus system sets its focus and that's. It does it once. So that's fine if you're either working with a static subject. So, an animal hiding in bushes or a tree or something like that, it's not moving or it's certainly not changing its distance from you. So that's fin, that single, shot is great. But once you start working with animals that are running fast or moving quickly, it's worth considering. And I say that guidedly, but it's worth considering switching to a continuous autofocus. So that may be called, AI servo, that's the Canon name for it. and Companies like Nikon, Sony, Fuji and others, you use AFC as their continuous mode. So continuous autofocus. Have a practice with both of them. But particularly get to know your, autofocus system. And the AFC is particularly important if the animal or your subject is either moving towards you or away from you. So that will allow the camera, it will keep refocusing as the subject changes. And you also need to know about how your AF system works. So there is likely to be either zones or spot focusing. And just have a look at the autofocus system. I'm not gonna go into all of that in this podcast, to go into that in the, the online training program I have for photography that goes into that in a lot of detail. But you need to understand your autofocus system at least at that level, so that you know how often it's refocusing while the shutter button is depressed and how it's choosing what to sub, what to focus on. Because usually with AF points, they can be down in the middle, but also you can, with a lot of cameras, you can reset them to be a different part of the, AF grid. So you'll have a little grid there, little boxes, and generally, you'll be able to set all of them, some of them, or just one of them. And I use, a single. I use the minimum, the smallest AF focus point that I can use. And the reason I do that is that I'm often shooting through grass and leaves and trees and things like that. And if your subject is moving, certainly if it's moving towards you, you're going to have to keep reacquiring. Usually one of the eyes is what I'll focus on if I can see them. So, and I'll just keep refocusing on that. now I do it in a particular way, and I'll explain that in a moment. But, just for now, just remember, get familiar with your autofocus system if you're not familiar with it, because this will matter when you're, photographing a subject that is moving either towards you or away from you. The reason I use the smallest point, as I've said, is there might be grass, there might be other things, and that's where the AF system can focus on the wrong thing, say some grass in the foreground rather than the animal that's making a kill. And you really don't want that to mess up too much. So another thing you can do, if you are using a telephoto lens, which I absolutely recommend, and this is how you shorten the distance. some lenses, some longer lenses, set the minimum focal distance. Now I'm just plucking some numbers out of the air because I can't actually remember what they are on the 100 to 400 I use all the time, which is quite bad really. But, the minimum could be either, 1.6 meters or 6.5 meters. Just to throw some numbers. If you know that you're going to be definitely no closer than 6 or 7 meters and maybe not even as close as that. Definitely if you're further away than that, then just switch the minimum focus to the more distant point. So rather than have it set to 1.6, which is quite close, have it set to 6.5. The reason for doing that is it minimizes the AF system hunting, because if it's not quite sure what it's supposed to be looking for, if it can't get a good focus on where you currently have the camera pointed and the AF point, what that's sitting over, then that's when the, the AF system will, the, the lens will start to hunt and it will try and focus on something. And if you just minimize that distance, chance to get in a miss, focus are reduced. Okay. now the other thing, I'm going to mention here is back button focus. Back button focus is where you just change how you set the focus on the camera. So what am I talking about? most cameras by default will set the focus when you push the shutter button halfway down. Okay. You'll hear. In fact, that's usually the factory default. So to check, just focus on something that's currently out of focus as far as your lens is concerned, then just push the shutter button halfway down and hold it there. And you should hear the lens refocus. And that's the AF system. That's when you're telling it when to focus. And then obviously you can push your finger all the way down. It'll take a photo. However, it isn't always convenient to do it that way. Mostly from the perspective of composition, but also if you're trying to focus on something that is relatively small in the viewfinder. I'll talk viewfinder, but however you're using it, if your subject is relatively small, but then there's lots of other things in the background or foreground that could easily confuse the camera. And a great example of this is a bird that you're some distance from when it's flying between trees, that kind of thing. what's likely to happen is as you move, which undoubtedly will. As you're tracking the bird, your AF point may go off the bird and onto something else. Then what happens is the AF system starts to refocus this with continuous autofocus, or even if you're just holding the button halfway down, on continuous autofocus, that will, just keep the camera refocusing. So the way I use back button focus in that sort of scenario is to focus on the bird, make sure that I am my focal point, my AF point is on my subject, definitely the part I want to be on. And then I'll just press one of the buttons on the back. And it's just, a function of both of the cameras I have. It may be on your camera, it may not, but you can reassign one of the buttons on the back of the body. So usually near where the shutter button is, so you're using your right hand still. But, you just change the function of that button in one of the menus to be the af, autofocus, button. And if you do try it, it takes a little bit of practice to get used to it. But I find it a much better system to use because it allows me to get a quick focus on my subject without having to worry too much about what comes and goes in front of them, especially when they're moving. So I was photographing some bears a few weeks ago and doing exactly this because, they were walking between trees, there was some long grass, things like that. They were more or less staying the same distance from me. So again, there you've got your depth of field working for you to keep kind of focus box that you can keep your subject in. And I, every time I had a clear view of that bear, I would just do a quick refocus. But I'm shooting images all the time and it just keeps things nice, and sharp and stops, you focusing on the wrong thing. So think about back button focus. It's worth knowing about if, even if you don't use it. Okay. ISO and, aperture balance. So, going back to the good old exposure triangle, we've spoken about shutter speed. Now, the ISO that you need will depend on the lens that you're using. So ideally, you want to get the fastest lens that you can. And what I mean by a fast lens is simply one that has a wider aperture. And these will be physically bigger diameters. So if it's got a big diameter on the lens, it's going to be a fast lens. And you'll also see the f number is quite small. So generally, you want to be able to have pretty much continuous access to anywhere from F 2.8 to F5.6. Once you go beyond 5.6, once you start getting to F8, you begin to limit your shutter speed in certain circumstances. Essentially, when it starts getting a bit darker, there's not so much light around. And then you have to compensate with the ISO and that. And you do that to maintain a specific shutter speed. So when you're looking at telephoto lenses, you'll see in the specs for them there'll be, the range of the lens. So it might be 100, 400. And then next to it, you'll see two, aperture numbers, and they could well be F 2.8 to F 5.6. What those numbers mean is that the maximum aperture, so the widest aperture at 100, that's the first number, would be f 2.6, because that's the first of the F numbers. And then the widest aperture at the other end at 400mil will actually be F5.6. So that's what that means. If you don't know, how does that work for you? Well, you're gonna have to try it, and I'll give you some tips on doing that, very shortly. But it's good to understand what your telephoto lens is capable of. And one of the tricks you can do is if the light starts to drop a lot, you might have pushed the ISO up as high as you want. But remember, as you increase the ISO, you start making the image more noisy. And what I mean by that is the sort of pixels that make up the image become more noticeable. Particularly if you've got an area of one color, and it could be a blue sky, or something like that, that those little pixels start to be much more noticeable as you push the ISO up. So as you increase the sensitivity of the sensor, that noise becomes more apparent. And part of that is noise from the electronics of the camera. If you're using long exposures, you'll start heating things as well, and that will increase noise. So noise comes from different sources within the camera. But the important thing to remember is where you can keep your ISO as low, as low as possible. So one of the tricks that was where I was going with this is to just shorten your, zoom. Okay. So if you were on and if I was doing this when I was photographing bears because light was dropping off, I started off at full 400, and I started to just pull back to down to 100 because it gave me a bigger aperture. And this is again why I always suggest to you that you shoot in RAW and you shoot the biggest file you can. Because obviously to get that same level of magnification that I have at 400 mil and try and replicate that, from a shot taken with 100 mil zoom, I've got to zoom in, I've got to crop in. And if you've got a nice big image, you can do that without introducing too much, it doesn't get too pixely from the sort of this basically your digital zooming and all that is, is pulling pixels away from one another. Okay. So I'm hoping that makes, a bit of sense. So really the thing there, is to just shoot or depending on the light, but have the ability to go to as fast shutter, speed as you can. And you do that by having the biggest aperture you can. So the smallest F number to 2.8 or 2 or whatever it might be for the lens you have. But that will, that is lens dependent. So when you switch lenses you're likely to have, a different speed range with that lens. And then ISO is the other way of, compensating for that. So I think I've labored that a little bit. So I'll, press on. another thing is to anticipate action going on and this through observations. So a great thing to do is just Google YouTube videos, things like that, anything that shows the animals that you're interested in going from rest to doing something. Because usually there's a pattern that they will follow and that's your signal that something's about to happen. So I've already spoken about a lion stalking. That just takes patience. You've got to just follow the line until it gets, excuse me, close enough to strike. but you can do this with, animals at home. So for example, if you're photographing a bird, birds tend to crouch a little bit in the moment before they take off. as I've said, cats will stalk before pouncing. Have a, Just Google it. See what, what is there for the animals that you're interested in. Look for the clues that tell you as an observer with a camera that this animal is about to do something. And that's when you need to start. That's when your finger needs to go down on that shutter button because then you'll catch the whole movement. another thing to do is to try and pre focus on where you think that it's going to Happen. So obviously with land animals where you can see the animal, that's pretty straightforward. And then you can give yourself a bigger depth of field if you want to, so that you can keep a certain range of movement, in focus. Particularly bearing in mind that you may well have to move the camera pretty quickly. If it's bird coming off a tree, that kind of thing, there might be the spot where it's feeding, it might be a water hole, it might be a trail, anywhere that you've got a kind of reference point that you know that animal is going to go by. Focus on that and keep both eyes open. So I do, I sort of do this automatically now, but you can see only so much through the viewfinder. and as you zoom in, your angle of view reduces. The, the more you zoom, the more reduced the angle gets. So it's really important to be aware of what's going on outside the camera's field of view. And, this particularly true with things like humpback whales because they will often breach in somewhere that you, you can't see them coming up. If you're pretty low down, often you can't see them until they break the surface. But also what you don't want to be doing is just looking through the lens. And then this amazing double breach happens. And it's not within the, the space, not in the spot you're looking at, and it happens off somewhere else and you don't even see all you, the first you know it's happening is you hear everybody screaming and shouting and all the other things that go on. So you really do need to be fully aware. And the, the best recommendation I can give you really, is to practice looking with both eyes, having the camera down slightly, then moving up quickly and shooting. And just practice till you get really good at that because that will certainly, help you out. Okay. the next thing is panning and tracking. So what you want to do is to essentially move with the animal as it's moving. Keep your finger on the shutter button, but you just want to match the animal's speed. A lot of animals when they run, their heads will stay in more or less the same place. Certainly cats will tend to do that. So that's the spot to focus on. And then even if you're using a slower shutter speed, you'll get some blur, but the actual bit you're interested in will be nice and sharp. Now, there's some great ways to practice this. You can do dogs or birds in your garden or things like that. Or just play with cars in as much as photograph them moving and see how good you can get at tracking them. It does come. It's kind of getting your eye in. And once you've got it, it's a really good skill to have. But keep it, keep practicing. Okay, quick one on gear. Ah, I've already mentioned telephoto lenses, so I won't repeat that. tripods, monopods, something with a gimbal, head is really important if, you are using a tripod because you can then move in all three axes and you want to be able to do that pretty easily and very quickly. I've already mentioned memory cards, so use the fastest cards that your camera can run with because the faster the camera can write to the card, the longer your burst is going to, your burst duration will be. And another thing to think about is extra batteries because you, if you are doing a lot of long, bursts, you will start to drain your battery depending on how quickly, your camera gets through batteries. Now, I really want to leave this on the creative side because, I want to leave you with some thoughts. So I focused, pardon the pun, I focused mostly on freezing the action, which I think is pretty satisfying actually, when you get a good shot like that. But if you want to try something else, get some motion blur in there. So if you are tracking an animal that's running, try a slower shutter speed. And I'd Recommend Something like 1 125th of a second because that it's still pretty fast. But as long as you're locked on the bit of the animal that's not moving relative to you. So in the case for cat, it's probably its head. it will depend on what you're photographing, but it does mean that everything else is going to be blurred, especially the background. So if your background and maybe your foreground are blurred, then you get that real sense of movement. And those I think, are very good images, to go for as well. So send a slower shutter speed, not thousandths, but use hundredths and just pan with your subject blurred, wings in a bird photograph are great as well. And if I learned this photographing propeller driven aircraft, because most people will shoot them in thousandths of a second, but all they do is freeze the propeller. And it looks like a model aircraft to me. So I deliberately so I experimented in the days of film to find a shutter speed that allowed me to, that was fast enough that I could stay on the aircraft fuselage or even the pilot and keep them sharp, but slow enough that there was blur from that propeller arc. So that's where that number comes from. Okie doke. Well, that's it. I'm just going to recap. So really the main things I think are, your shutter speed. For most of what you're doing. You probably want to be shooting at about 1,1000th of a second or maybe a little bit faster. So once you know that that determines what aperture you're going to use, your depth of field and also your ISO. Given that you probably want your ISO as low as possible. Use, continuous autofocus, however that's described on your camera, and use burst mode. So to have your camera set to do bursts, not single shots, not single images. Learn what you can about the behavior so that you can anticipate when something is going to happen and then you're ready for it. It's not always possible, but with some animals it is. I can't stress enough the importance of practicing both panning, tracking, all of that stuff, and even being aware of what's around you. You know, looking through the viewfinder with one eye, but being aware of other things with your other eye. So that these are really good skills to have, particularly if you might have more than one animal that you're trying to stay on top of or, you know, it might be a situation where you don't know where the animal is going to appear. And remember, blur is definitely, something not always to be avoided when it comes to wildlife. If you get that sensation of movement, that can give you a really rewarding result with your photography. So I hope you found that useful. in the next, episode, what we're going to talk about are, environments. So we've been pretty fair weather up till this point, but now we're going to look at harsher environments. And remember, if you've got any shots you want to share, share them in the Facebook group. Any comments, please let me know. Please remember to like and subscribe. And also there's a link to, the PDF that I put together, which is a brief guide to wildlife photography that, that I do charge for that, but it's just a few euros, few dollars, so not, exorbitant. Okay, thank you, for being a part of this and I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Now I just want to say thank you for tuning in and joining me in the, wildlife and adventure photography podcast. If you have enjoyed today's, episode, please give me a like a subscribe, maybe tell your friends, and by all means leave a comment. And if there is a subject you would like me to cover in the future, please let me know and I'll be very happy to do my best. So thanks again for, joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again. Next podcast. Bye for now.