Aperture Priority for Wildlife Photography

[CatherineA]

Hi Trev, Thanks for your suggestion, I appreciate hearing it. I am looking forward to learning from these videos, they have a great reputation. It was soooo cold here today that I should have watched one rather than shoot the snow buntings that have returned to Ottawa. My fingers stung in the wind. I can’t get over that any bird would come to Ottawa for the winter. So many leave us for the south.

[Tronhard]

Hi Trev, Thanks for your suggestion, I appreciate hearing it. I am looking forward to learning from these videos, they have a great reputation. It was soooo cold here today that I should have watched one rather than shoot the snow buntings that have returned to Ottawa. My fingers stung in the wind. I can’t get over that any bird would come to Ottawa for the winter. So many leave us for the south.

It's unique to capitals - all the hot air generated by the parliament makes it quite a balmy climate for the birds, while for the rest of us it's just plain balmy...

[Arjung]

Hi Catherine,
I just saw this thread. I shoot a lot of wildlife photography myself and have been doing so for over 8 yrs. I have some rules I follow:

1. I shoot in Aperture Priority and try and make things a little quicker by changing my ISO settings to full stops. That means with one rotation of my dial it moves from 200 to 400 rather than 250, 320 & 400.
2. It is very important to stabilize your image. Try not to handhold unless absolutely necessary. Use a bean bag if you don't have anything else
3. Make sure you understand how your camera focuses. If the eyes are not sharp you have a rubbish photo. I shoot in Continuous mode with Single Spot as I find this works best for me
4. You need to understand what shutter speed you need in different circumstances. Your dog and birds flying around could be ideal test conditions
5. Your camera should be prepared with its settings as when something happens in the wild, you do not want to be fumbling around making adjustments to your camera. Losing that split second is enough to miss your best photo opportunity
6. If the light is poor (dawn, dusk, dark forests) and you can't get the shutter speed you may want to experiment with motion blur

Happy clicking
Arjun

[CatherineA]

Thanks Arjun, I will go later today to photograph some gulls and try to put into practice what I am learning. My favourite spot for shooting the gulls is on a slope and my tripod (a cheap one) is a struggle to level so I have been handholding the camera. I am going to experiment with a pillow that is rather like a bean bag. And I absolutely need to learn more about how my camera focuses because there have been a number of times when the photos have been blurry even though the green brackets on the viewfinder had indicated the eyes had been in focus. Thank you for all your suggestions, they are all helpful to me.

[Tronhard]

Thanks Arjun, I will go later today to photograph some gulls and try to put into practice what I am learning. My favourite spot for shooting the gulls is on a slope and my tripod (a cheap one) is a struggle to level so I have been handholding the camera. I am going to experiment with a pillow that is rather like a bean bag. And I absolutely need to learn more about how my camera focuses because there have been a number of times when the photos have been blurry even though the green brackets on the viewfinder had indicated the eyes had been in focus. Thank you for all your suggestions, they are all helpful to me.

If your camera indicates that it is focusing correctly, one reason you may still have blur is that either you, the whole animal or the eye is moving. Different people have greater or lesser ability to hold a camera steady. If you are holding a heavy camera, strengthening the appropriate muscles is a worthwhile activity. You could try and use a monopod - or extend just one leg of your tripod as an experiment. Putting a camera on a bag may not allow you to pan to match the speed of the subject - if that is what you want.

If the whole animal is moving then it could be your accuracy in tracking, and/or your shutter speed.

If it is just the eye, it could be a change in distance as the bird moves its head, or the bird could simply be in the process of moving its eye or blinking!

For every great shot you will get a fair bunch of duds - with digital that is no longer a big issue as it was in my days of shooting in film!

[dem]

Catherine, do you have image stabilisation turned on for BIF? It is common for OIS to blur the image when you shoot at a high shutter speed or pan. I turn mine off.

[CatherineA]

Thank you very much Trev and Dem.

Thanks Trev for your comments on focus. Today I am reading about exactly happens when I choose Subject tracking instead of another area focus mode, and what happens when that choice is combined with the full-time auto focus turned on, and what continuous shooting does when added to the mix. Once I have that sorted I should be able to better understand where I could improve as opposed to when life happened and the just bird moved. You helped me in another thread and referred to proprioception and muscle strength and I actually now work on that each day. Thanks for that.

And thanks Dem, I never thought that image stabilization could be a detriment when I handhold the camera. If stabilization means that the camera is slower then it working against me. I'll experiment and see if I am steady enough to pull off no stabilization.

Yesterday I spent an hour photographing in a little greenhouse. It won't be my love and my photographs aren't very inspiring, but what a different beast it is. Calm. No sense of preordained defeat. Photos came out fine.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Catherine,

You may find it beneficial if you post some images, both good and poor so that we can see what sort of shots you are attempting and comment on what the problems may have been. This will help you learn to recognise why things did not work out as hoped.

Comment and assessment can also take into account the capabilities of your specific camera.

The images would need to have the shooting data (Exif) included.

[CatherineA]

It would be great if I could explain what my thinking was this morning when I took some photos, and hear comments. A large flock of geese must have been disturbed because suddenly there was a lot of honking and a wave of birds started coming our way. I was hoping that there would be some way of capturing the event with my camera. I am still not sure if there is a way or how to approach that. I hurried to get the camera settings and my emphasis was on a fast shutter speed. I should have over-exposed but I don't think that's the biggest drawback to the photo - I suspect composition is the weakest part.

Should I have chosen a different perspective? Should I have considered different settings? I know that it wasn't an extraordinary experience but it would be satisfying to know how to capture some of its flavour. My camera is a bridge camera and I don't have the range of options that other cameras have but I think it is still a tool that I can work with. Thanks for any thoughts.

[Tronhard]

To me, when deciding a photo is good or not, I need to know the context. There are, of course limits - such as getting the basic technical stuff right - focus, horizontal alignment etc. But when I judge a photo I like to know both the intent and constraints of how the image was captured.

For example: I have taken technical images that one could correctly say have little artistic merit, because they are not meant to be considered in that context, they are meant to show the profile, or other physical characteristics of a device or object. Similarly a friend of mine was harshly criticized for not moving about 20m to the left to improve the image layout and balance, the fact that he would have fallen over a precipice was not considered.

So when you show your photos, give us a few words about what you were trying to convey or capture, and perhaps any constraints (such as you described about time to set up).

Good photos should let the viewer know what you are trying to "say" with your photo. That could mean isolating or highlighting one specific element, it could also mean looking for patterns or make the viewer's eye go on a journey through a landscape - like following a river for example. I think a good image is one where a message is clearly expressed, even if one is left to explore further.

[CatherineA]

Hi Trev, The birds were such a strong presence for those few moments: their numbers, their noise, and even though they were many they moved as one. It was as if all the boldness and strength had switched from being on the ground to those who were in the air. They are just flecks in the sky in my photos and I wonder whether there is some way with a camera to convey their presence. If I were to zoom in then I would lose their numbers and that was an important element of the scene.

I wonder whether a lens that can capture wide angles could have done it, the type of lens that can photograph the length of a tall building. Or maybe that is done by photo stitching, I don’t know.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Catherine,

It would be great if I could explain what my thinking was this morning when I took some photos, and hear comments. A large flock of geese must have been disturbed because suddenly there was a lot of honking and a wave of birds started coming our way. I was hoping that there would be some way of capturing the event with my camera. I am still not sure if there is a way or how to approach that. I hurried to get the camera settings and my emphasis was on a fast shutter speed.

I believe you have captured the scenes well and there would have been very limited options available to you.

No 1 is especially good in the way that you have captured the shape made by the birds and included a good expanse of the foreground and horizon (buildings). This shows the environment they are in well.

For No 2 the tree included helps and it may have been a possible option to shoot from a lower position to include some of the trunk as well. But this depends upon your accessibility and if you had the time to do that.

Technically, both images are sharp, well exposed and have adequate DOF for the critical subjects. So, your settings were fine and you have used the ideal ISO for IQ.

I should have over-exposed but I don't think that's the biggest drawback to the photo

Whilst No 1 could have been exposed very slightly more it is well within the limits that can easily be tweaked in post.

I suspect composition is the weakest part.

Apart from the option of including more of the tree in No 2 I think you were limited. In No 1 you can level the horizon, possibly crop some of the foreground and increase the contrast of the birds against the sky to emphasise that shape more.

I wonder whether a lens that can capture wide angles could have done it, the type of lens that can photograph the length of a tall building.

Your lens has a 4.3 - 357mm focal length (24 - 2,000mm 35mm equiv) and you used it at 7.7mm for No 1 and 30.3mm for No 2 image. You could have gone wider but your birds would have become smaller A wider focal length could help in this specific situation in that in No 2 it may have allowed you to include that entire tree and a vast expanse of sky.

Including something in the foreground with wide angle shots is generally beneficial and is something worth practising. The trick is that you need to get both fore and near critical subjects within the DOF and will need to experiment with focal length and near subject distance to determine what you lens can do.