Wildlife Photography for Beginners and Amateurs

What makes a good wildlife photograph? Personally I believe you have to get at least the following four things right:

1) Composition;

2) Exposure;

3) Focus; and

4) Sharpness.

If you then combine it with good light, creativity and story-telling, the sky's the limit!

My Top 5 tips for wildlife photography are:

1) Give yourself a chance;

2) Know your settings;

3) Don't hesitate;

4) Photograph regularly; and

5) Keep learning.

In this lecture I discuss Camera bodies and the factors that you should consider when buying yours, namely:

1) Budget - the best camera body is the one you can afford!

2) Crop sensor vs Full frame - what are the advantages and disadvantages of both?

3) Mega pixels - how many do I need?

4) Burst rate - the value of being able to take lots of photos in quick succession.

I also very briefly discuss DSLR vs Mirrorless.

Choosing the right lens, or lenses, for wildlife photography is challenging. In this lecture I discuss:

1) The basics of lenses - different focal lengths as well as minimum f-values and depth of field;

2) Examples taken with different popular wildlife lenses;

3) Why you should stay away from entry level lenses;

4) Why I prefer using the same brand of lens and camera body;

5) Zoom lenses vs Prime lenses - what are the pros and cons?;

6) Why I don't like using converters or extenders.

Camera-shake is arguably the single biggest cause of blurry photos, especially in low light conditions. In this lecture I discuss the pros and cons of different support systems available to wildlife photographers, namely:

• Holding your camera correctly and using your own body parts like elbows and knees;

• Monopods;

• Tripods;

• Gimble heads and support arms; and

• Bean bags.

In this lecture I talk about three other pieces of equipment that's also important for wildlife photography, as well as my photo editing software of choice, namely:

• Your computer or laptop - I use a Macbook Pro;

• Your external hard drive - I use a SanDisk SSD;

• Your camera bag - I use a backpack style bag; and

• Your editing software - I use Adobe Lightroom Classic.

In this lecture I go into detail about the pros and cons of Jpeg and RAW files:

• Jpeg files take up less space and are more colourful, but they don't like being edited;

• RAW files take up more space and often look grey, but you can edit them over and over again.

If you never edit photos and want a nice fast burst rate, photograph in Jpeg, but if you want the best quality photos that you can edit, RAW is the way to go. Also always make sure that you photograph in the best quality version of each!

One of the most commonly asked questions I get on safari is: what mode should I be photographing in?

In this lecture I discuss three different Camera Mode options, how they influence your photos and when you should use them, namely:

1) Aperture Priority (A/Av): In this mode you control the f-stop and thus you can change the depth of field in your photos;

2) Shutter Priority (S/Tv): In this mode you control the shutter speed, which allows you to either freeze action or capture movement in your photos.

3) Manual Mode (M): In this mode you control both the f-stop and the shutter speed, allowing you to capture very specific scenes that might otherwise be difficult to photograph when the camera chooses some of the important exposure settings for you.

Many people want a recipe, but unfortunately there's not a single set of settings that work all the time for wildlife photography. The specific set of settings you have to choose will depend on the sighting, the light conditions and on what your objective is at that moment. There are, however, good go-to settings that I use whenever I leave camp in the morning and that I change throughout the day as the conditions change, namely:

• I leave camp in Aperture Priority with my f-stop as low as possible and my ISO as high as I'm willing to take it.

• I also make sure that my exposure compensation is on zero, my white balance is in auto, my metering mode measures light across the whole frame, my focus point is in the middle and my auto focus mode is on continuous.

• I then change my f-stop depending on how much I want in focus and my exposure compensation to level out my exposure.

• I also decrease the ISO if it gets lighter and increase it again if it get darker.

• I only switch to Shutter Priority if I want to capture movement or freeze action.

Everyone loves taking wildlife portraits with subjects that are sharp and in focus and backgrounds that are nice and blurry. If you do these four things, your portraits will come out beautifully:

1) Use your minimum f-stop - the lower your f-value, the shallower your depth of field and thus, the more the background blurs.

2) Zoom in as much as possible - rather park further away and zoom in as opposed trying to get as close as possible to your subject.

3) Make sure the background is as far as possible behind your subject - there's no ways to blur it if it's too close to the animal.

4) Make sure the background is uncluttered - the busier the background, the less your subject stands out.

Depth of field is basically how much or how little of your subject is in focus and the actual distance is influenced by three things, namely:

1) Your f-stop - switch to Aperture Priority and choose low f-values (f/2.8-f/5.6) for a shallow depth of field and increase your f-values in order to increase your depth of field.

2) Your focal length - the more you zoom in, the shallower your depth of field and the more you zoom out, the greater your depth of field.

3) The distance between you and your subject - the closer the animal, the shallower the depth of field and the further away the animal, the greater the depth of field. As a result I typically increase my f-value a bit when animals are very close to me (just to make sure their heads are completely in focus) and I usually use very low f-values for lone animals that are far away from me, because I know their whole body will be in focus.

You can use a depth of field calculator to determine the exact depth of field, providing you know the camera model, f-stop, focal length and distance to the subject.

Ensuring that our animal subjects are in focus and maintaining that focus are two of the most important things in wildlife photography. To achieve this, you have to choose the right Auto Focus Mode as well as the right amount of focus points in each situation.

Auto Focus Modes:

Lock focus (ONE SHOT for Canon-users and AF-S for Nikon-users) whenever you're photographing subjects that aren't moving and remember to either move your focus point or to lock focus and recompose your image if your subject is not in the middle of the frame in the final composition.

Track focus (AI SERVO for Canon-users and AF-C for Nikon-users) whenever you're photographing moving subjects and remember to keep the focus point(s) on the animal's head/eyes.

Focus Points:

Use a single focus point on your subject if clutter in the foreground steals your focus or if you're photographing animals very close to you at an extremely shallow depth of field. Increase from a single focus point to a small cluster of focus points when you're photographing moving animals or birds in relatively open areas.

Back-button focusing allows you to have focus locking and focus tracking without changing your Auto Focus Mode, but it can be very hard to get used to initially.

Low light conditions, like you find early morning and late afternoon, on overcast days or in jungles, often lead to slow shutter speeds, which in turn lead to blurry photos. To combat this, I use:

1) Low f-values (which let in more light); and

2) High ISO values (which make the camera's sensor more light sensitive).

The combination of the two will give you the fastest possible shutter speed in low light conditions when you're in Aperture Priority.

Test your camera(s) at different ISO values to see when it becomes too grainy for your liking.

Exposure compensation is a handy shortcut setting that allows you to quickly make your image brighter (over-exposing by going to the plus side) or darker (under-exposing by going to the minus side) and it typically works in third-intervals.

• Over-exposing is great for showing detail in dark areas, especially on overcast days; and

• Under-exposing is great for creating silhouettes.

Always leave your metering mode to meter light across the whole frame (Evaluative Metering for Canon-users and Matrix Metering for Nikon-users), because the margin for error is much larger here than when you use the other, more localised metering modes.

White balance refers not to the brightness of your image, but instead to the temperature of your images, in other words, how warm (orange) or cold (blue) it looks.

If you are photographing in Jpeg, you have to choose the right white balance setting that matches the conditions, but if you are photographing in RAW, you can stay in Auto White Balance and edit the colour temperature of the photo during post-processing.

Photographing birds in flight is not easy, but there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of getting it right:

1) Give yourself a chance by going to places where you know you'll find flying birds, like heronries, nesting sites and underground hides;

2) Make sure your shutter speed is fast enough - the smaller the bird the faster the shutter speed typically has to be;

3) Choose the right Auto Focus Mode - track birds that are flying past you in Continuous Auto Focus and lock focus on still-sitting birds that are about to take off;

4) For take-off shots, make sure your depth of field is large enough, especially when birds sit very close to you;

5) Use the fastest possible burst rate (high continuous) to ensure as many photos as possible in the sequence;

6) Leave enough space around your subject, especially if they have large wingspans; and

7) Learn more about bird behaviour to give yourself the best possible chance of capturing them in flight.

Panning shots are very creative and require not only very specific settings, but also a lot of practice and luck. They work best in low light conditions, namely early morning and late afternoon, on overcast days or in forests/jungles.

Switch to Shutter Priority, choose a slow shutter speed value (between 1/5sec and 1/50sec) and AUTO ISO, so that your photos don't over-expose. Walking and slow-moving animals can be photographed at slower shutter speeds and trotting, running or flying animals/birds can be photographed at slightly faster shutter speeds.

The key is to follow the animals through your viewfinder and to take your photos while you're moving your lens at the same speed as them! It definitely takes practice to get this right... Activate Continuous Auto Focus Mode (AI SERVO / AF-C) to ensure you keep focus on them while they move.

Panning shots don't always work. In fact, the hit rate is usually quite low, even for us pros.

I use a very specific set of settings when I take night-time photos, namely:

1) Shutter Priority with a shutter speed of 1/125sec (which is fast enough to freeze a slow-moving or still-standing animal, providing I hold my camera nice and still, but also slow enough to let in a lot of light);

2) AUTO ISO with a maximum value set to 3200 or 6400, depending on the camera (to allow the camera to control the exposure as the animal moves closer or further away from me); and

3) Exposure Compensation set to Ev-1 (to neutralise the brightness of the spotlight).

Always keep your camera dead still when you take photos at night and take as many as you can to increase your chances of getting something pin sharp.

We get front light when the sun sits behind us and falls over our shoulders directly onto our subjects, and it's best utilised early morning and late afternoon.

PROS: It works great in colourful scenes or when you want to take very representative photos of your subjects, showing all their characteristics.

CONS: Because front light eliminates shadows, your subject and scene often look very flat and textureless.

We get side light when the sun falls on our subjects at an angle, and it's best utilised early morning and late afternoon. It results in lots of shadows, which highlight detail and texture on your subject and also creates depth in the scene. I therefore typically use  side light for animals that are very wrinkly (like elephants), when I want to highlight texture of subjects or even objects (like the bark on a tree trunk), and when I photograph animals in their environment at larger f-values.

We get back light when the sun sits directly behind our subject (above or below the horizon) and it's best early morning and late afternoon. It results in very dramatic images, especially in dusty conditions and when you under-expose a bit. My favourite part about it, is the rim light it creates around the subject, and thus I always try and use this type of light when I see very furry animals. It also works very well when you photograph animals with very recognisable shapes, like elephants, giraffes, ostriches, etc.

Many people stop photographing in the middle of the day when the light is harsh, but as long as your subject is in full shade and the background is completely light/bright, this is a great opportunity to over-expose and capture images that can be turned into high key photographs during post-processing.

Don't put your camera away just because the sun isn't shining. Overcast days create diffused light, that not only eliminates high contrast and tricky dappled light, but also emphasises detail and texture, much like side light does.

The key is to get your exposure right, because photos can often look too dark if you don't over-expose a bit, and also make sure you use low light settings (low f-value and high ISO) to reduce the chances of blurry photos.

Sometimes conditions may be too dark to get nice animal photos, in which case you might want to use a strong external flash to light them up. These conditions include:

• Low light conditions early morning or late afternoon;

• Animals that are standing in deep shade; and

• Very overcast conditions.

It's important to not only set the flash exposure compensation value to emit the right amount of light, but also to move the flash slightly off-centre with a flash-bracket in order to reduce the amount of reflection in the animal's eyes.

Also beware of harsh reflections off other surfaces, like bright foregrounds or vegetation around your subject. Because of these reflections, as well as the fact that flash light essentially produces flat front light, I prefer using a spotlight which not only creates nicer side light, but also allows me to shine past any reflective objects in front of or next to my subject.

Everyone loves taking close-up animal portraits, but to really tell the stories of your sightings and safaris, you have to zoom out every now and again to capture animals in their environment. Make sure you:

1) Use wider lenses - you typically have to be 70mm or wider to capture enough of the scene and don't be shy to zoom out all the way.

2) Use the rule of thirds to compose your wider photos - horizons go close to or on top of the bottom and top horizontal thirds-lines and subjects and objects (like trees) go close to or on top the lefthand and righthand vertical thirds-lines. The four 'strongest' points in your frame, to where our eyes are drawn most, are where the lines cross, so try and place your subjects here if you can.

3) Increase your aperture values (f-stops) slightly when you photograph animals in their environment so that more of the scenery is in focus as well.

If you really want to compliment the portraits and wider photos you take of animals, zoom in close for a change and photograph their body parts like feet, tails, ears, eyes, etc. Think carefully of your composition by anchoring lines in corners and using the golden mean as a guideline whenever there are curving lines in the frame.

We often instinctively zoom in too much when we photograph animals, boxing them in in the frame and accidentally cutting off parts of their bodies when they move.

Rather zoom out a little bit when you compose your photos and leave enough space. If an animal looks directly at you, leave the same amount of space left, right and above it, and if it looks or walks to the side, leave more space in that direction. Remember to also leave space for your subject's shadow.

Leaving the right amount of space is all about achieving balance in the photograph!

Don't be shy to leave a lot of empty space in your frame. We call this negative space and it can actually help to draw your eye to the subject and add some drama to the scene. Just remember to use the rule of thirds as a guideline when you take these kinds of shots.

One of the best compositional tools at your disposal is changing your angle! Not only does it change the light, but it also gives you a new perspective and allows you to get the background far behind your subject, especially when it's very small. Taking a few steps left or right and changing the angle also allows you to remove unwanted clutter behind the subject, making your blurred background even more striking.

For some reason we instinctively take horizontal photos of animals and seldom turn our cameras vertically. Some subjects, however, look much better in a vertical composition, usually because of their shape or the shape of other features, like trees, in the frame.

Always consider whether a vertical composition will look better than a horizontal one when you compose your wildlife photographs and keep in mind that at least 1 out of every 9 photos I take, are vertical!

A lot of beginners make the mistake of turning colourful, front-lit images into black & white, but the result is usually very grey.

Black & white wildlife photographs work best when:

1) Your subject is very dark and the background is very bright;

2) Your subject is very light and the background is very dark;

3) When your subject is high in contrast because of its patterns (like a zebra with its stripes); and

4) When your subject contains a lot of texture (like an elephant's skin).

Converting your images from colour to black & white and also 'save' some photos that would otherwise not have looked very good.

One of the most important steps in creating a good black & white wildlife photo, is to edit it properly! Don't be shy to increase the contrast and make sure you highlight detail and texture by increasing the Clarity value in Lightroom.

High key and low key photographs are creative images that are either grossly over-exposed or grossly under-exposed respectively. This creative technique can only be created when the conditions allow it and the key is to spot those ideal conditions when you're out in the field and to not only make use of those opportunities, but also to use the right amount of over- and under-exposure in camera.

High key and low key photos do, however, also need a fair amount of post-processing and in this lecture I show you how I edit two high key examples in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

Blurring the background of your subject is a great way to isolate it and really make the animal stand out in your photos, but if you want it to stand out even more, try blurring the foreground as well. Remember, a shallow depth of field (which you get when you use low f-stops) doesn't only blur what's behind your subject, but also what's in front of it.

The key is to choose an angle that allows you to add some piece of the foreground in the frame that will enhances the photo instead of detracting from it when you add it blurred.

This can be a piece of vegetation, the surface of the ground or water, or even another animal.

There are so many creative techniques that can make your wildlife photographs stand out from the crowd, including:

1) Natural frames - pieces of the environment, or even other animals, that frame your subject;

2) Reflections - make sure you leave enough space to include the whole reflection in the photograph;

3) Repetition - the more a specific shape is repeated in the frame, the more impact it has; and

4) Scale - highlighting the small or large size of your subject, or even another object like a boulder or a tree in that animal's environment, can be very eye-catching.

If you only take close-up animal portraits, like so many people do, you'll never truly capture the essence of your safari. Rather tell a story with your wildlife photographs by asking yourself these five questions:

1) Who am I photographing? This is where you take full-body portraits of your subject(s).

2) What do they look like? This is where you zoom in a bit to take head shots and even more to take close-ups of their body parts.

3) What are they busy doing? This is where you try to capture any kind of action or behaviour, for example: yawning, walking, running, playing, grooming, flying, etc.

4) Where do they live? This is where you zoom out all the way to capture your subject(s) in its environment.

5) Who else was there? This is where you look for any other animals that were in the sighting as well.

The more of these questions you can answer with your photos, the better you'll be able to tell the story of a specific sighting.

If you don't do proper research about the safari destinations that you're planning to visit, you might end up very disappointed. The things I typically read up on before I go to the new national park or game reserve include:

1) What it looks like there during different seasons - when is it dull and dry and when is it lush and wet?

2) When certain wildlife spectacles take place - when do specific birds breed or animals migrate in big groups?

3) Which waterholes are the most productive and what time of the day I should visit it.

4) Active den sites - are there any hyenas, leopards, jackals, etc. with youngsters worth visiting?

5) Animal appearance - what do the birds and animals look like when I plan to visit?

The more you know about animal behaviour, the better your wildlife photographs will become, because this knowledge will allow you to anticipate certain striking moments before they even occur. Here are just a few things that you can read up on if you want to know more about your subjects' habits:

1) Their distribution - in which parts of the continent or country do they occur?

2) Local occurrence - do they actually occur in the national park or nature reserve I plan to visit?

3) Habitat preference - if they do occur there, in what habitat types should I go and look for them?

4) Activity patterns - what time of the day are they most active and do they hang out in specific places at that time?

5) Specific behaviours - is there anything I can look for that will give away the fact that something else is about to happen?

6) Alarm calls - if you can identify alarm calls of prey species, it could help you to find the predators that trigger them.

One of the best ways to increase your chances of getting fantastic wildlife photographs, is to go to places where the animals are very relaxed, for instance:

1) National parks and game reserves that see a lot of traffic and where the animals are used to vehicles and visitors;

2) Rest camps, lodges and campsites where you can stake out bird baths and nests (at a respectful distance, of course) and photograph other creatures that have become accustomed to seeing humans on foot a lot;

3) Photographic hides that typically attract animals to water sources - why look for them when they will come to you?

4) Places where animals have specifically been respectfully habituated over decades to allow you to get close to them.

One of the best ways to improve your wildlife photography, is to go on safari with a photographic guide. They will:

1) Identify specific animal species you don't know, for example: birds and butterflies;

2) Share local knowledge about a specific national park or game reserve;

3) Help identify specific individual animals, for example: the dominant male leopard or the tigress with cubs;

4) Help you to choose the right camera settings at every sighting;

5) Use their knowledge and relationship with rangers and drivers to get you into the best possible photographic positions;

6) Anticipate animal behaviour and give you a heads-up to get ready to take the shots;

7) Give you creative and compositional tips while you take photos.