10 Pro Secrets For Wildlife Photographers

[Music] hey everyone steve from backcountry gallery here and this time around i want to give you 10 rapid fire wildlife photography tips that will make an instant difference in the field i actually have like a lot more than 10 of these though so i'll probably do another video or two in the near future this time we'll focus more on camera techniques next time maybe more on compositional and artistic techniques by the way if you want to make sure you don't miss that or any of my videos or articles be sure to stop by my site and sign up for my free email newsletter i only send it occasionally so i'm not going to fill your inbox with junk or anything but i do a lot more than videos and the easiest way to get access to that information is through that free email newsletter at any rate let's get started and note that these are not in any particular order of importance so here we go tip number one check your settings now this first tip takes practice but it's probably the most powerful one on the list each time you bring your camera to your eye glance at your settings ensure you have an appropriate shutter speed f-stop and iso for what you see in the viewfinder and double check to see if you have any exposure compensation set not only will this prevent accidents but it'll get you to confirm that you really are using the best settings for the situation you see in the viewfinder the biggest trick of course is forcing yourself to get into the habit of doing this consistently and do whatever it takes to make that happen even if you have to like stick a post-it note to the eyepiece alright now maybe that is taking it too far but one thing that you actually can try to do is just kind of keep the camera with you when you're doing something else like watching tv or working at a desk etc and you know just occasionally bring it up to your eye and look at the settings if you do it enough you'll develop muscle memory that will make checking your settings second nature and most importantly automatic it might be a pain to get yourself in the habit but i promise you the long-term payoffs are huge tip number two progressively step down your iso when you're facing a relatively stationary subject in low light isos are often a problem no matter what kind of support you're using handheld monopod or tripod you can try progressively dropping your iso to nail the best quality shot the way this usually works is by starting with a wide open lens and using the slowest shutter speed that you think will safely net you a sharp image take a quick burst verify you do indeed have a sharp image then drop your shutter speed to something a little less comfortable so you can use a lower iso shoot again at that slower shutter speed and again verify you have a sharp image note that you may have to try this a few times to get a sharp photo as you drop shutter speeds once you do get a sharp photo at the slower speed continue on to progressively slower speeds for as long as the animal will allow or until you get to the point that the shutter speed is just too slow and you simply can't get a sharp photo another way to make this work is by using live view with a tripod mounted camera start by setting your camera on a secure tripod then switch to mirror up mode full electronic shutter silent shooting mode or whatever mode your camera offers that is the most vibration free next set a delay using either the exposure delay option or a self timer now focus using the back lcd in live view once everything is absolutely perfect trip the shutter the delay will allow the rig to settle and as long as your subject doesn't move this allows you to use shutter speeds that are unthinkable with your hand on the camera by progressively dropping iso when i can i'm often able to shed a couple of stops of iso in those low light situations of course people ask why not just start with the slower shutter speed and work your way up to faster ones i don't recommend starting off at a really slow shutter speed since the slower you go the higher the failure rate and if the animal takes off before you get a sharp photo you're done you missed it i recommend starting with safer shutter speeds to guarantee you get a sharp photo since you can often fix a noisy shot but one that's out of focus is a lost cause in short only play this game once you get a sharp image on the card and only if you don't think you'll need that faster shutter speed if the action suddenly heats up tip number three use longer bursts for sharper photos another technique for slow shutter speeds and a relatively stationary subject is to shoot longer bursts to increase your chances of a sharp image and yes you could use this tip with the previous one now how can shooting longer bursts give you sharper images think of it like this let's say hypothetically that at 1 125th of a second you get about one shot and 10 sharp when hand holding a 600 millimeter lens if you shoot a burst of eight images there's a statistical chance that not one single image is going to be sharp however if you shoot 20 you'll in theory have two that are indeed sharp basically you're playing a numbers game of course there's a lot of variables that come into play here but shooting longer bursts when i'm stuck at slower shutter speeds has absolutely helped me nail photographs i otherwise would have missed i've had bursts of 20 even 30 photos at really slow shutter speeds where only one or two were sharp and sometimes those were at the end of those bursts had i not taken that long burst i would have completely missed the opportunity tip number four always verify your tripod is secure this one is really easy each time you set up your tripod push down on the top before you mount your camera i've seen too many people fail to do this only to watch one of the tripod legs they thought was secure collapse bringing the entire rig to the ground get in the habit of pushing down on the top of your tripod each time you set it up and you'll never experience that nightmare tip number five help the camera focus don't you hate it when you have an af point over your target you engage af and the camera hunts and hunts eventually just giving up what seems to happen is when your camera doesn't have an af lock it runs the focus ring at full speed back and forth trying to remedy the situation asap the problem is if the af target is poor it can whip right past it one trick that has worked well for me in that situation is to give the camera a hand with a little manual focus when the camera is having a tough time getting a lock i manually focus the lens and get focus close to correct it doesn't have to be perfect then i engage af to finish it off and usually the camera will grab right where i want it doesn't work every time but it does work more often than not tip number six still can't focus turn the camera if that last tip fails not all hope is lost our af sensors are sensitive to lines going a particular direction or directions depending on the af sensor one trick that i've used over the years is when the camera is reluctant to latch onto my target i'll rotate the camera 45 degrees and try again now it doesn't always work but it's worth a try if it locks on just release your af on button or lock focus turn the camera back and fire away tip number seven running low on memory try crop mode if you've ever found yourself at risk of filling your memory cards and you don't have any extras with you one technique that can sometimes help is switching to crop mode shooting in crop mode reduces the size of the file and allows you to put more photos on your card so naturally this should only be used if you were going to crop the photo anyway number eight watch for blurry foreground objects one habit that's really helped me in the field is always looking over my lens to see if there are any sticks blades of grass vines leaves or similar obstacles between my camera and my subject the problem is if you just look in the viewfinder these objects can often like blur out and look more or less invisible especially in the heat of the moment however if there's some obstacle between you and your subject it can cause a loss of sharpness and leave you wondering why the eye or the face isn't as crisp as you expect now the best way to spot these problems is to look over the top of your lens and make sure there are no sticks grass vines leaves any vegetation basically between the camera and the subject if there are usually just a small move left or right will remedy the situation and give you a clean shot number nine anticipating a shadow pull keep the iso low often when we're shooting we notice shady areas that we later intend to pull up once we're back home processing the raw file however if you anticipate a shadow pull back home do everything in your power to keep the iso as low as possible in the field when you pull the shadows you're essentially increasing the iso for that local area so that means if your iso was something like 3200 for the shot and you need a two-stop shadow pole those shadows are going to look like they were shot at iso 12 800. anytime i'm facing a heavy shadow pole i'll do everything in my power to drop my iso as low as i can get away with often using a tripod or monopod to get there it can really make a huge difference number 10 start tracking before it's time to shoot if you shoot wildlife action when you start tracking is often the difference between a keeper and a reject flag for me i found that i have the highest success rate when i start tracking before i actually need to shoot obviously this isn't always possible you know sometimes things happen fast but when you can do it i find it helps the trick is to watch not only the area that's in range of your lens but also the areas that are a bit farther out nothing makes me happier than to see an animal usually a bird coming my way where i have ample time to secure a solid stable af lock before it's actually in range the thing is the sooner you get that stable af lock the sooner the af system's wizardry can kick in to help you maintain that lock i know there are other methods for tracking an incoming subject but for me personally i've had the best success just getting on the subject early and keeping on it without releasing the shutter of course once it's in range i still keep the af engaged but then i'm firing away there you go 10 quick tips that i hope you'll find useful if you like these tips they really are only the smallest slice of what you'll discover in my educational materials each of my books and video workshops are absolutely jam-packed with tips and techniques just like these that can help any photographer take their images to the next level make sure you check them out the books and videos not only discuss the technical aspects but also how why and when to use the techniques that they describe finally thank you so much for watching again remember to sign up for that free email newsletter at my site and also make sure you stop by the bcg forums if you ever have a camera question i'm there all the time there's lots of really smart people over there that can also help you answer your camera questions and finally as always make sure you like subscribe and get notified thank you so much for watching have a great day you

Channel: Steve Perry

Views: 64,819

Keywords: photography tips, photography help, Backcountry Gallery, Steve Perry, nature photography, wildlife photography, wildlife photography tips, wildlife photography techniques, pro wildlife photo tips, wildlife photography help, bird photography tips, bird photography, mammal photography, animal photography, wildlife photo tips, wildlife photo techniques

Id: ZIjlN5KROtY

Length: 11min 4sec (664 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021