8 Secrets For Sharper Wildlife Photos

[Music] hey everyone steve from backcountry gallery here and this time let's talk about the top eight ways to improve the sharpness of your wildlife photos or you know probably other subjects too let's go number one shutter speeds okay this may seem like a back to basics tip but the truth is when people present me with photos so i can diagnose sharpness problems somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of the time the issue is actually with shutter speed the problem is there's a prevailing assumption out there that shutter speeds like 1 250th of a second are fast enough for most subjects and something like 1 1000th of a second should be enough to stop any kind of action so it's often difficult to convince people to crank their shutter speeds up more towards like 1 2 000 or even 1 4 000 of a second for faster action heck my favorite action stopping bird and flight shutter speed one thirty two hundredth of a second however when i can convince people to try a faster shutter speed they often discover that their images instantly go from soft to sharp so if you've been getting soft images just for fun try going one stop faster than what you've been using i think you'll be surprised at the results number two shoot from good support this goes hand in hand with shutter speed often when shutter speeds drop people resist placing the camera on a tripod or monopod for far too long instead trying their best just to hand hold the thing one of the things that i do in my workshops that consistently surprises people is when i convince them to just try shooting everything from a tripod for a few hours and just take a look at the results invariably after they check their images on their computer they come back to me with comments like hey steve i never knew my lens was that sharp and after that i catch them using a tripod a lot more throughout the trip the bottom line for me is if i'm shooting a long lens and i'm under maybe like 1 800th of a second or so i grab a monopod or a tripod and my shots are consistently sharper than when i don't number three use the best af area most dslrs feature a wide array of choices for af areas and choosing the correct one is often the difference between capturing the photo you want and one that's sharp in all the wrong places the trick is to use the smallest af area you can reliably keep on your subject for stationary or slow moving critters that typically means single point af with single point af you place the af point right on the eye and there's no question that's where the camera is going to focus the problem with using larger af areas for static or slow moving targets is that you're unnecessarily giving up control of a placement to the camera when shooting action that's often a trade we're willing to make however there's no need for it when dealing with static subjects don't get me wrong the camera may still focus on the eye with those larger af areas but it may also focus just as enthusiastically on the nose shoulder or some nice nearby vegetation of course that doesn't mean you should always shoot with single point af either as things start getting more active in the viewfinder single point af often becomes too difficult to keep on target that's when you switch to those larger af areas and give the camera more control since af area modes vary widely by brand i'm not going to go into specifics here but generally speaking the faster and more erratic the action the larger the af coverage you'll want for a successful image number four keep af engaged and on target well this tip seems obvious for action work it's also great advice for more stationary subjects start with the camera in afc mode and then if possible move the af point to the animal's eye once you start shooting keep the af point on the eye and keep af engaged the entire time you shoot that way if you move a little or the animal moves a little the movement is compensated for instantly and you never miss a sharp photo too often i see photographers focus on the eye and then lock in af either because they're using afs slash single servo af or they're releasing the af on button if they're using back button focus the problem is unless both you and the animal are perfectly still it doesn't take much movement to end up with an eye that's out of focus sure if the eye is outside the af field you don't have a choice but if it's at all possible get the af point on the eye and keep af engaged as you shoot it's been a fantastic technique for me over the years and has netted me literally hundreds of thousands of tack sharp eyeballs number five shoot longer bursts if you're facing slower shutter speeds one way to help secure a sharp photo is to shoot longer bursts the reason it's simple math think of it like this let's say at 1 60 of a second with maybe a 600 millimeter lens you get about one shot in six tech sharp using whatever your preferred support method is that means if you shoot just a quick burst of three frames you only have a 50 50 chance of having a sharp photo in that group however if you shoot a burst of 12 shots you should in theory end up with two that are tax sharp of course we don't have a set ratio of shots too sharp images in the real world since there are hundreds of other variables at play with any given photo up but i think you get the idea if you're facing slow shutter speeds shooting longer bursts gives you a better chance of nailing at least one sharp image i know it's worked well for me in the past when i face those painfully slow shutter speeds number six avoid heat diffraction and heat haze another problem that seems to cause headaches is heat distortion and heat diffraction if you've ever looked down a road on a sunny day and saw heat waves rising up from it you already know an extreme example of what i'm talking about what happens is the ground is warming the air directly above it and as that warm air rises and mixes with the cooler air above it there's a difference in air densities these differences cause the light to refract and that wreaks havoc with both af systems and your ability to capture a sharp image if you've ever shot wildlife across an open field or even a body of water on a sunny day and couldn't quite figure out why your images weren't as sharp as you thought they should be this is likely the culprit it's actually far more common than most people think the only solution is to move to a location where the area between you and the subject is protected from sun or reduce the distance between yourself and the subject now if you want more info i did a video on this and i'll put a card above and a link below in the description if you want to check that out by the way heat diffraction is also the number one cause of soft images when shooting from a car typically this happens when it's cool out and you're shooting from a nice warm vehicle when the cool air from the outside mixes with the warm air from your car it becomes nearly impossible to get a sharp photo number seven use vr when needed another tip is to use vr or image stabilization when the shutter speed drops below a level you can successfully handhold and you can often use this to help with tripod work too now i realize some of you may be skeptical about this but just hear me out for a moment if your shutter speed is at or below say like around that 1 500 of a second range with a long lens on a tripod and and you're using a loose tripod head as you should be for wildlife photography you can usually use vr or image stabilization for a little extra stability i do this all the time and it's often the difference between a memory card full of sharp images and one full of disappointment okay though i know what you've heard you should shut off stabilization when you're on a tripod so let's talk about that quickly first most modern lenses especially nikon and canon can sense if they're on a tripod so it's actually not a big deal for those lenses that can't sense a tripod or where the manufacturer recommends turning stabilization off when you're on a tripod like many sony lenses for instance this technique can still work since the tripod head is loose and the rig is not locked down in fact i do this all the time with my sony lenses and the results have been fantastic number eight last resort consider af fine tuning if you see consistent front or back focusing you may want to consider a fine tuning slash lens calibration however i do urge caution here the truth is most lenses do not require af fine tuning but unfortunately people often turn to it when the real problem is actually one of technique if your photos aren't as sharp as you'd like make sure you're following the rest of the advice in this video before trying to adjust those lenses also the only way you should consider afine tuning is if you see either consistent front or back focusing but never both if focus is sometimes in front of where you want it and sometimes in back of where you want it then it's not it's not an af fine tune issue also i urge you to use your lenses in the field a bit before tuning to really see if there's an actual problem too often people tune first then shoot only then to discover they messed up a perfectly good lens if you do see a consistent problem in your images with front focusing or back focusing there are a variety of tools you can use to help and i'll put them in the description area of this video and for the blog post for this video at my site by the way if you enjoyed this video be sure to check out all my educational materials as well this is especially true if you're a nikon shooter and you want to get sharper images my nikon af books are literally hundreds of pages filled with advice for sharper images finally remember to sign up for my free email newsletter to get even more tips tricks and advice also check out the new bcg forums page if you want solid reliable answers to your photography questions and of course don't forget to like subscribe and get notified thanks so much for watching and have a great day you

Channel: Steve Perry

Views: 265,028

Rating: 4.9775615 out of 5

Keywords: photography tips, photography help, Backcountry Gallery, Steve Perry, nature photography, wildlife photography, sharpness, sharper wildlife photo, getting sharper pictures, photography sharpness tips, how to get sharp photos, sharper wildlife photos, sharp images, wildlife sharpness techniques, wildlife focus techniques, wildlife focus tips, tack sharp wildlife

Id: TLe6mXjFRdA

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020