Wildlife Photography

David · Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 13

I've always loved animals sice I was a kid, and I've always been fascinated by animals in the wild. When my wife and I travel, we always try to go to places where we can see animals.

When we went to Acadia National Park, there were some avid bird photographers there. They were taking pictures of baby Falcons. They let us look through there telescopic lense. It was really cool to see them.

Up on Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia), we did some Moose spotting. We got a few pictures, but nothing too exciting. Nevertheless, we really enjoyed seeing the animals.

I'm curious. Does anyone have any advice for someone that wants to start shooting ... let me rephrase that ... photographing wildlife?

NeoDevin · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 3

Best advice I have is to never try to get a picture of yourself patting a grizzly on the rump ;)

Jonathan · Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 20

Heya David, a couple of variables come to mind. For one thing, much depends on the type of wildlife you want to photograph. Also, and related, where will you be taking the pictures from relative to the animals in question? Photos of a raccoon on the back porch or going through the garbage dumpster are different from safari shots of an elephant or lion from inside a jeep for instance. While a long lens is probably going to be important, the smaller the animal and the further the distance between you, lens length will become all that much more important.

Beyond being able to fill up more than a corner of your viewfinder & image with the subject, there's also the issue of speed/light/capture. Is the animal one that does/will be moving fast, such as a humming bird, or will it be an alligator at rest? And what will be the typical lighting conditions? Bright sunlight on an afternoon desert hike or dark shadows in a deep forest? The less light the more time is needed to capture the image and, while faster film speeds can help, they also have larger grain as they get faster. Given the grain factor a related issue becomes what size image is important to you... just a standard snap shot or do you want to be able to make large enlargements?

As a general rule, the smaller the minimum aperture rating of a lens, the more light you can capture/unit-time (the cost is depth of field of focus, but that's 1) another issue, and 2) an unavoidable trade off), helping with faster motion or lower lighting conditions.

An autofocus camera/lens will make your life easier but aren't, strictly speaking, necessary.

I'm not sure what type of camera you’re using or what your budget is but, ideally, I'd say a good bet for general wildlife photography would involve investing in a long zoom lens (maybe 100-400mm), with as small an aperture rating as you can afford. The longer the lens, however, the faster the exposure time needs to be to avoid stability problems if your hand shooting the camera, so a tripod is probably a good investment as well. As an aside, some lenses (Cannon was the first, others may have followed) have IS (image stabilization) lenses available that can help counter shakes from hand shooting.