Wildlife Photography Tips

Introduction: Wildlife photography skills. Whether you are in a professional or amateur position in photography, as long as you are a nature lover, in most cases you will not want to miss any opportunity to photograph wild animals, and you will be willing to share your masterpieces with others. This is a rare experience. Bring a camera and take photos while exploring nature. This way can help us shorten the distance from nature and even help us understand the true meaning of nature. Wildlife Photography Tips

However, don’t rush out just yet. Understand that taking an engaging wildlife photo is much more difficult than just incorporating the animal into the frame. If you simply press the shutter on the animal in front of your lens, you will find that the photos you take are either a disaster or have no visual impact. You still have a lot to learn before you hit the road. Let us use five tips from professional wildlife photographers to help you get started with wildlife photography faster and teach you how to take better photos.

1. See more and learn more

For a person who is new to wildlife photography, his experience in this area is probably zero, and experience is exactly what makes him a professional. A must-have tool for every master photographer. Therefore, as a beginner, we need to read more and learn more. First of all, we need to be clear that there are all kinds of wild animals in the world, and their habits and characteristics may be very different. You cannot photograph all animals in the same way. But if you can calm down and take the time to observe them, you can grasp their movements and understand when to press the shutter in your hand to capture the wonderful moment.

The success or failure of wildlife photography depends on your ability to record special moments. Whether it is flying, walking, foraging, or even eye contact and interaction with other animals, they can all become your photos. The shining point. It's like making friends. How can you get to know a person without spending enough time? Once you observe and understand the behavior of animals, all that's left is to wait patiently for the wonderful moments to come. We usually think of wildlife photography as an exciting thing, but in fact, on the contrary, those wild animal blockbusters are usually created by calm waiting and tons of experience.

2. Use a high-speed shutter

It seems like nonsense, but the more obvious the truth, the easier it is to be ignored by people. Accurately predicting shutter speed is far from as simple as we imagine. I don’t know how many photography works with great wildlife photography potential are ruined because the shutter speed is lower than the animal’s moving speed. In most cases, the photo will be blurred. Saw it. What needs to be noted here is that unlike landscape photography, the principle of wildlife photography is to rather increase the ISO and sacrifice image quality, but also to ensure a sufficient shutter speed.

Even if your subject is not moving, we cannot take it lightly. You never know when they will move, and some animals are even more motionless. Their movements are startling, and maybe they move. It's the wonderful moment you've been waiting for. So for safety reasons, the shutter speed should be at least 1/500s.

3. Carry two cameras

In fact, wildlife photography is not as fun as we imagined. Photographing wild animals can be said to be a double test of our patience and physical strength. In addition to having to carry a heavy "big cannon head", if you are aiming to capture wonderful moments, you'd better bring two cameras to avoid anything that might make you regretful. Each camera is equipped with a most commonly used lens, so that we do not need to change lenses frequently during shooting. We only need to put down one camera and pick up another camera. This process generally does not take us more than one second. time. The lenses I use most often are a 70-300mm and a 400mm.

4. Practice frequently and don’t let your skills get rusty

Don’t get into the habit of not photographing non-rare animals. Practice makes perfect. We need to use some common animals in life to practice diligently. Practice more and hone your shooting skills. In this process, you may one day be surprised that you can already take such great photos. If you prefer to shoot birds, you can pat more birds such as magpies and sparrows, so that you will not be in a hurry when you encounter a macaw.

In order to facilitate shooting at home, we can set up a bird feeding area outside our window to attract birds, and then practice.

5. Try a variety of compositions

Normally, when we photograph wild animals, we tend to use a composition that fully presents the animals as much as possible. But we shouldn’t go all the way. Sometimes changing our thinking can yield unexpected results. Learn to experiment with different compositions, such as highlighting just one part of the animal. We could just shoot the eyes, or highlight some other interesting details.

Then zoom out to take some pictures of animals and the environment. In addition, we can also try to shoot from different angles, such as low-angle shooting or eye-level shooting.

In general, the tools you need when photographing wild animals include understanding your subjects, excellent shooting techniques, and rich experience. If you have all of these conditions, congratulations! It lays a solid foundation for taking wonderful wildlife photography. The rest depends on your luck and creativity.