5 Things I've Learned About Wildlife Photography

Okay, so I'm in no real place to be handing out tips for wildlife photography. I'm an enthusiast photographer, but no professional, and although I've been dabbling in wildlife photography for about 10 years, it was only when I got hold of my first genuinely good bird photography lens (the Canon 400mm f/5.6 L) a month or two ago that I really started getting more serious with my hobby. 

In this short time I've learned a huge amount about how to improve my own photography, and so I thought I would share a few of my experiences. Here are five things I've learned:

1) Aperture Priority (Av) mode isn't just for beginners

Although many pro photographers recommend Av mode* for beginner wildlife photographers, relatively few seem to recognise that this mode can still be useful to you, even once you've begun to get the hang of Manual mode. If, like me, you often use a 'walk and shoot' photography style, you will find that your light conditions will constantly change as you walk through different habitat types (e.g. woodlands and open grassland and scrub habitats). If you are in full manual mode, you'll need to be constantly adjusting your shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings as you go in order to apply the correct exposure to your images. This can be a bit of a faff (setting the correct shutter speed in particular requires a bit of practice), and means you run the risk of missing your subject whilst you're changing settings. This is made even worse when the weather conditions are changing, (e.g. intermittent sunshine that causes significant changes in light levels between one minute and the next). Using Av mode in these scenarios can greatly reduce the risk of missing your subject, and can also reduce the number of those frustratingly over or under exposed imagies.

Clearly full Manual mode has its advantages. If you're photographing birds in flight for example, you'll definitely want to set your shutter speed yourself (rather than let the camera do this automatically), as you'll need it to be as fast as possible (ideally more than 1/1000th of a second) to reduce motion blur, even if this is at the expense of a higher ISO and an aperture that is wider than you would usually use for stationary subjects. Av mode isn't able to know that your subject is fast moving, so won't necessarily set a fast shutter speed by default unless you happen to have set an appropriately high ISO and wide enough aperture (this can be hard to judge!). I found this out the hard way when photographing red kites in the Chilterns a few weeks ago. My shutter speeds of 1/640 or 1/800 just weren't quite fast enough most of the time to get sharp images. 

*Aperture priority (Av) mode allows you to adjust your aperture and ISO settings manually, and will automatically set an appropriate shutter speed to correctly expose your image.

2) Don't feel guilty about using photography setups. 

Bird photography setups can split opinion. Some argue that setups can result in lots of images that look exactly the same (i.e. hundreds of brids landing on the same perch with little or no wider habitat context). This is undeniably true to some extent. However I'd argue that they offer an opportunity to really get you thinking about how to compose your images (including your background), without even having to leave your own garden (if you have one!). This goldfinch image really demonstrates the pros and cons of photography setups. I'm happy with the image, but I can totally also see that it's far from being a unique photograph, due to the relatively unintersting perch, and the non-descript pose of the bird. 

Goldfinch in the back garden on a perch setup

I have a very basic setup in the back garden where I have attached an old, dead buddleja branch to a garden chair and set it up close to a bird feeder (with the idea being that the garden birds use the branch as a perch before dropping down to the feeder). I have positioned the perch such that it is in front of a green coloured background (a garden hedge and lawn), and that there is plenty of space between this background and the perch (to achieve an attactive, non-distracting blurred background). I use our garden shed as a hide to get relatively close to the perch (and therefore reduce the level of cropping I have to do), and then just wait for the birds to arrive. This can take a surprisingly long time (I often wait for well over an hour for a bird to land on the perch!), so don't let anyone tell you that photography setups are too easy! 

I would add that the safety and survival of the birds should always be the priority; try not to put your feeding perches a very long distance from any cover, or you are potentially just putting the birds at higher risk from predator attacks.

3) Stop down your aperture a little, but not at the expense of your shutter speed.

You might hear pro photographers advising you to 'stop down' your aperture to reach the 'sweet spot' of your lens. That is, the aperture at which your lens will produce the sharpest images. For many telephoto lenses, this is often quoted as being between f/7.1 and f/9 (i.e. not completely wide open at f/4 or f/5.6). Whilst this is true, I'd add the caveat that you should only stop down your aperture if your lighting conditions are good enough. If you stop down your aperture in lower light (e.g. on cloudy days), you'll need to compensate for this by using a slower shutter speed. For bird photography, slow shutter speeds are more likely to result in blurry images than shooting at a wider aperture, especially if you're shooting fast moving subjects (e.g. small passerines, or birds in flight). If, like me, you are using a lens without Image Stabilizer, faster shutter speeds will be even more important. I have included the house sparrow image below, as proof that you can get sharp images at f/6.3 or wider. This image was taken on a cloudy day, so in order to be able to use a moderately fast shutter speed of 1/640th of a second, I had to shoot at f/6.3 and ISO 1600. 

House sparrow in the garden on a perch setup

 

4) ISO performance on crop sensor cameras isn't great; but there are good solutions!

I have generally been really happy with my Canon 90D since I got it a couple of months ago. Like many mid-range DSLR's, the 90D has a crop sensor (rather than full frame). There are actually quite a few advantages to using a crop sensor, but one major drawback is that they struggle in terms of ISO performance. On my 90D, I find that anything higher than ISO 1600 produces lots of grainy digital noise. However, there is a very good piece of software that I've been using (Topaz DeNoise), which does an excellent job of removing digital noise caused by high ISO's. At £80, it isn't a cheap solution, but it is at least a one-off payment, and I have used it on virtually all of my photos since I bought it. It means that you can shoot at ISO 1600 or possibly ISO 2000 without completely ruining your images.

5) Patience; let the birds come to you

As a birdwatcher, my instinct when going to nature reserves is to try and cover as much of the site as possible in order to see as many species as I can. I don't exactly run around trying to see everything, but equally I don't stay for very long extended periods of time watching a single bird. As a result, it has been tough for me to break this habit when going to sites with my camera. When photographing birds, I have found that it is very beneficial to learn to be a little more patient, and spend longer with individual birds than you usually would. This is especially true when photographing shier species that might only make an appearance once you have gained their trust. A species which comes to mind is the common whitethroat. They will often sit deep within scrub whilst singing, and will tend to stay there if you are constantly walking around the bush trying to get a good angle on the bird. However, if you stand a few metres away and just wait for the bird to gradually move to a branch which allows a cleaner shot, then you might be more likely to find success. The downside is that this approach can take a very long time. Be prepared to spend an hour or more just trying to target a single species in a particular area of habitat. Hot drinks and cake will make the time go faster if you're still not having much luck!

As a wider point about patience and as a closing point, I've found it can be very demoralising to walk away after a two or three hour session with hardly any (if any at all!) photos that you're happy with. This is (I hope!) very normal, and the way to think of it, is that when you do get the photo you're after, it'll be even more satisying. The difficulty of wildlife photography is what makes it so addictive!