Wildlife Photography - Photographic techniques

Wildlife Photography

Author of text and photographs: Mario Belić

Ever since a long time ago we have been, and still are, connected with nature. In a world around, people have been hunting wild animals or growing plants to survive. Wood, stone, soil and water are some elements of nature a human life depended on. Nowadays, the situation didn't change much, although, with a development of technology we have distanced ourselves from nature. These days to us, nature is a place for leisure and recreation as well as a refuge from a 'modern' life. Many photographers use nature as their subject, and what our ancestors hunted using a bow and arrow long time ago we are now trying to “capture” using modern photo equipment. Nature photography includes several shooting styles depending what part of nature we wish to capture and present.

Macro-photography means photographing small objects such as insects, flowers, leaf details, still-life and other objects we often don't see at a first glance.

Photographing animals refers to photographing animals that live free in nature, while landscape photography to some countryside or a landscape. For all mentioned objects the proper photo equipment and other accessories are needed. The equipment we need is already familiar to us, however, it's important to know when and how to use it properly. First, let's mention a few lenses, focal lengths that is (sure we mean 35-mm or Leica format). Here is where we should emphasize we don't shoot landscapes with only wide angle lenses, fearful animals with only tele lenses nor tiny objects with only micro lenses.

Wide angle lenses such as 14 -35 mm, because of their large angle of view, capture a lot of space that in the beginning only confuses us, while on the photograph we take the object of interest is often tiny and unrecognizable. Therefore, it's best to place the object (one or more flowers, waterfall and etc.) in a foreground i.e. close to the lens.
The rest of the photograph will be a background which will show us where the main object is situated. For example, if we wish to photograph a rare mountain plant then it's best this plant is placed in a foreground and takes majority of it, while the background can be the surrounding rocks and mountains which are, if the sky is clear, stretching for miles in a distance. The same lens can be used for photographing animals, but keep in mind it's almost impossible to come close enough to a wild animal in order to take a good shot with a wide angle lens. Apart from fixed lenses we can also use wide angle zoom lenses such as 17-35mm, 20-35mm or some of many combinations that have, with appearance of digital cameras, overwhelmed the market. Tele lenses 300 – 600mm and longer are more ideal for photographing birds and other animals because of their small angle of view which gets you closer to the object of interest. To get a good quality snapshot of some animal it's necessary to know well their behavior, habits and alimentation. Professionals say; to take a good shot it takes 90% of planning and the rest depends on equipment that should as well be as good as possible. When photographing mammals it's important to be in the field early in the morning or early in the evening as at that time the animals are feeding. Animals are best spotted on the border line of two habitats, such as the edge of the woods and a prairie, a prairie and a stream or the woods and some fish pond. In such place, set up a shelter that will fit well with the nature surroundings, enter it before down or dusk and wait there patiently. Staying in a shelter like this is somewhat like meditation and anticipation, and nothing like boring queuing in some Zagreb's supermarket. In situations like these, it's best to use as quiet equipment as possible such as manual focus or a quiet auto focus. Such 'quiet' lenses are often a part of Canon's arsenal marked USM (ultrasonic motor), Nikon's marked AF-S, Sigma's marked HSM and Konica Minolta's SSM. It's also necessary to muffle the shutter noise using a purchased or a hand made baffler.

Sure these are just basic details, however, there are also other relevant details, (too many to mention,) which can vary from situation to situation. Photographing birds is, again, different from photographing mammals because they are active mostly during the day and when nesting are often territorial and mainly move around the nest. Their movements are quick and sudden; and we often have a feeling we're photographing a sports match. Birds as well as the rest of the wild animals are hard to approach because every wild animal has a so called safety zone within it feels secure. If a potential danger or a human being steps into their invisible zone the animal will get away.

As far as the light is concerned, photographs turn out the best when taken in the morning or early evening, and that is also the time when the majority of the wild animals are the most active. To take a good photograph it's also important to know the behavior of our object as well as it's important to have a good composition. In spite of all the above mentioned, I believe the experience of staying in the nature is the most important, and the internet debates on which lens is sharper in those moments seem a bit funny.