Tips for wildlife photography

Lead: Wild animals are the most beautiful fairies in Shan Ye. Because their actions are unpredictable, to accurately record these charming figures, we need not only to fully understand the habits of animals, but also to have a super telephoto lens, accurate exposure judgment and incomparable patience. What shots do you need to shoot wild animals? What should we pay attention to? Let professional photographers Zhao Jia and Xi support agriculture to explain the shooting skills of wildlife photography to us!

Choice of lens

Wildlife photography is basically the world of the pike party. In this field, a lens with a focal length of 70-200mm can only be regarded as? Pediatrics? , 300mm, 400mm, 500mm, 600mm, or even longer long fixed-focus lenses are the main force. There are two reasons: first, wild animals are often far away and difficult to get close to, and it takes a very long focal length to shoot a large and clear subject; Secondly, in this focusing section, the fixed-focus lens has a larger aperture, better imaging quality and higher focusing accuracy than the zoom lens, which is very important for wildlife photography and has also created the status of the top long-range gun in this field.

Top-class fixed-focus lenses over 300mm are often amazing in size and weight, and are not suitable for hand-held shooting. They must be used with tripods or monopods for convenience. I think all my friends who have used it have a deep understanding.

Selection of accessories

When using a super telephoto lens, a stable tripod is necessary. It is best not to choose spherical pan/tilt, but to choose a three-dimensional pan/tilt with higher positioning accuracy, or a special pan/tilt specially designed for ultra-telephoto lenses. If it is a slightly lighter lens such as 300mm and 400mm DO, it can be considered to be used with a monopod to improve shooting stability while maintaining good flexibility.

Camouflage and protective equipment are also essential when shooting in the wild, which can make you blend into the shooting environment, not easy to be noticed by the subject, and can take more wonderful and natural photos. Necessary camouflage can also minimize the interference with wild animals and ensure that the normal living habits of the subjects are not greatly affected.

▲ When shooting moving animals, you must keep in focus to ensure clear focus at all times. Canon EOS 5D Mark III+EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM, f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 1600. (Photo: Xi Supporting Agriculture)

A special case of ultra telephoto lens: EF 400mm f/4 DO is USM

In the huge pike, Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO is USM (so-called? Big green? ) is a special case. This lens is only 233mm long and weighs only 1930 g (including 140 g tripod ring), which was hard to imagine before. Multi-layer diffractive optical elements with special functions are used to effectively solve the dispersion problem of ultra-long focal lens, and the design of 400mm lens is completed in a small volume. The birth of this kind of lens makes it possible to shoot wild animals by hand. It is equivalent to improving the hand shock prevention system of two-stage shutter, which greatly improves the shooting success rate. Although there is a certain compromise in image quality, this compromise is very worthwhile compared with the shooting opportunities brought by the improvement of mobility.

In the test of Canon EOS 5D Mark III, many test photos were taken by Xi Zhinong's teacher in Tengchong, Yunnan and Brazil. Judging from the shooting effect, the imaging of this lens is very remarkable, and it is quite good to achieve such image quality under such a volume and weight. Of course, if you don't have to consider mobility at all, or need a larger aperture and a longer focal length, the common large aperture fixed-focus lens will obviously be a better choice: the choice of lens must be based on specific needs, and this is no exception.

▲ It can be seen from this picture that the imaging of EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM is very good. Sharp focus and soft background blur are almost equivalent to the effect of top-level lens, and the focus is also very accurate. Canon EOS 5D Mark III+EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM, f/ 10,11600 sec, ISO 400. (Photo: Xi Supporting Agriculture)

Photography Skill 0 1: Focus mode

Because wild animals often move at high speed, it is necessary to use artificial intelligence servo focusing to lock the focus correctly and ensure the focus is clear, including continuous focusing mode and focus selection mode.

When tracking a high-speed moving object in a relatively empty place, it is best to use a single-point extended focus mode with a large focus area or a regional focus mode with a large focus range; However, when shooting in trees with many obstacles, it is necessary to choose single-point focusing mode or fixed-point focusing mode with small focusing area according to the situation, in order to effectively bypass obstacles and accurately focus on distant animals.

Among the 6 1 focusing points of Canon EOS 5D Mark III used by the author, 4 1 is a cross focusing point, and the other 20 are single-line focusing points, so the performance is weak. These focus points have a good effect in assisting focusing, but they are relatively poor in single focus and fixed focus.

▲ Using high-speed shutter can solidify moving animals and get clear images. Canon EOS 5D Mark III+EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM, f/4.5, 1/320sec, ISO 800. (Photo: Xi Supporting Agriculture)

Photography Skills 02: The Choice of continuous shooting Mode

In most cases, the photographer is very far away from the animal being photographed, and the shutter sound will not cause much influence, so you can safely use the high-speed continuous shooting with 6 frames per second. If it is necessary to keep the shutter sound quiet, you can use the quiet continuous shooting mode. Continuous shooting speed will be reduced to about 3 frames per second, shutter noise will be greatly reduced, and shooting can be completed relatively quietly.

Photography tip 03: Use manual exposure mode.

Wildlife photography and sports photography also have a lot in common. Both of them must maintain high shutter speed, expose as accurately as possible, and use low ISO to obtain better image quality. Based on these conditions, wildlife photography mostly adopts M mode, and photographers manually control exposure parameters such as aperture, shutter and ISO to accurately control exposure. If the change of ambient light is complicated, you can also combine the automatic ISO function to ensure that the lowest ISO is used under the appropriate aperture shutter to optimize the image quality. When shooting at night, you can use the flash as needed.

▲ You can get clear animal pictures at night by using the flash. Canon EOS 5D Mark III+EF 400mm f/4 DO is USM, f/4, 1/80 seconds, ISO, f/4, 1/80 seconds, ISO 2000. (Photography: Xi Supporting Agriculture) Photography Course

Photography Skill 04: The skill of accurate focusing in shooting.

When shooting a moving object, it is necessary to ensure that the viewfinder always locks the subject and places it in the autofocus area. Try not to press the shutter to focus all the time, but press the shutter to focus continuously and rhythmically, so that the camera can lock the focus on the subject. When you need to move the lens frequently to shoot, remember to set the shockproof mode of the lens to mode 2 to get the best shooting effect.

▲ When shooting small animals, you should pay attention to the expression of your eyes. You can fill the light with a reflector or a flash. Canon EOS 5D Mark III+EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM, f/4.0, 1/50 seconds, ISO 4000. (Photo: Xi Supporting Agriculture)

Protect nature with images

The purpose of shooting wild animals is to record the most natural and beautiful side of wild animals, so that people can have a deeper understanding of them and advocate the concept of protection. When shooting, we must keep in mind the original intention and try not to destroy the living environment of animals, so as not to put the cart before the horse and lose more than the gain. Teacher Xi Zhinong, who is dedicated to wildlife photography, is a good example. His pictures of Yunnan golden monkey, Tibetan antelope and other rare wild animals are not only precious image materials, but also contribute to the development and promotion of wildlife protection in China. He started it? Wildlife photography training camp? Cultivate new blood for wildlife photography every year. Teacher Xi's efforts and persistence in wildlife photography deserve our respect and study.