Some tips for photographing wild animals

1. Do some research on animals

What kind of animals are you going to photograph? Why do you want to photograph these animals? What environment do these animals like to live in? What are the characteristics of their habits? ?Offensive? The more you know, the more likely you are to take great photos. Usually wild animals are not very friendly to humans and will not pose in front of your camera. Unless you encounter them by chance, in order to photograph the things you want to photograph, you must know where to find them and when they are most active. And if the thing you want to photograph is particularly timid or has dangerous habits, you will also need to prepare special equipment to prevent the animal from discovering your presence.

2. Fully understand the environment

As with all planned travel, the more you know about the various local conditions, the less likely it is that accidents will occur. You should have as much knowledge as possible about the humanities, geography, environment, and climate of your destination. This knowledge can come from information, books, travel magazines, the Internet, or you can directly call or write to the relevant local departments to seek it. help. Photography is the art of light, so it has special significance for understanding the local climate. At the very least, you should know when the light is best, when you need special equipment to complete the photo, and when it is simply impossible to take a satisfactory photo.

3. Photographic Equipment

Zoom is very important

We may not be unfamiliar with traditional wildlife photographers, because these photographers often work for some Magazine services, for example, National Geographic Magazine. For these photographers, the lenses of their cameras are quite long. But one thing is for sure, a long lens has great benefits, because when photographing many wild animals, we cannot get too close. After all, we don’t know what they are thinking, and there may be danger. Even if the wild animal allows you to approach, you will not do so. At this point, if we want to photograph wild animals, the only way is to stay far away from them and use a long lens to capture their every move.

At the same time, when shooting, we must also consider the authenticity and effect of the picture. In order to make the image look more authentic, we also had to capture the image wider to fill the entire image frame.

If you do not buy a SLR camera, the point-and-shoot camera you buy should also be equipped with a zoom level and should be utilized on your camera. Even if you only have a point-and-shoot camera, you can probably make do with it, but you have to remember to turn off the digital zoom mode on your camera, as it doesn't work particularly well on point-and-shoot cameras. In fact, digital zoom can expand the pixels, especially in the middle of the frame; in addition, digital zoom can simulate more zoom. In other words, what digital zoom can do is equivalent to image editing.

Shutter speed is very critical.

In fact, the longer the focal length, the greater the impact on the photo, because it will cause camera shake and lead to unclear images. In addition, wild animals move very fast and unpredictably, so the shutter speed of a camera is very demanding, because only a fast shutter speed can capture the instantaneous action. Therefore, shutter speed affects the clarity of photos to a great extent. If the camera lens is long enough and the shutter speed is fast enough, you can capture the image of a lion running.

As for photographing wild animals, my advice is very simple: Set the shutter speed to the fastest possible time and be ready to shoot, because wild animals will not wait for you to shoot. Normally, I put my camera in aperture priority mode and set the aperture to the best setting available, which pushes the camera to use the fastest shutter speed.

ISO (sensitivity)

ISO is a measure of the camera’s sensitivity to light. When photographing wild animals, you can also add a little shutter speed so that you can capture it better. their movements. For many people, they only increase the ISO when shooting at night. But after long-term shooting, I found that it is also necessary to increase the ISO during the day. I sometimes do this when shooting wildlife at noon. For example, when I was photographing wolves on a cloudy day last winter, it was about 3 p.m., I set the camera to ISO 3200, and the exposure was about 1/60 second. Of course, there is a drawback to this, that is, the higher the ISO, the greater the digital noise produced in the picture. But it’s totally worth it, and the best proof of that are the perfect photos.

4. Choose the right time:

Choosing the time has two meanings: First, when photographing wild animals, you must fully consider the habits of wild animals, when they are active, when they eat, When to rest; secondly, the influence of light factors must be taken into consideration. Sufficient and infectious light is an important factor for good photos. Only by taking these two factors into consideration can you capture interesting works.

5. Choose different angles:

Although it is difficult to have many angles for you to choose from when photographing wild animals, sometimes you can still find many interesting angles.

If conditions allow, you can use angles where the lens is level with the horizon, level with the animal's eyes, or looking down from a high place. Photos taken when observing animals from the height of human eyes may appear rigid. Sometimes, shooting the back of an animal can produce strange and interesting effects.

6. Director of Animals:

Wild animals will not provide you with any convenience in shooting. But if you figure it out, it's possible to get wild animals into the poses you want to a great extent. For example, you can suddenly make a sound to make the animal alert to you and turn its eyes towards your camera. However, this posture will not last long, and it will quickly run away soon. So you should finish shooting other shots first, and then be prepared to capture an interesting surprised expression in a split second.