A Few Expert Tips And Tricks To An Improved Wildlife Photography

If you are an enthusiastic wildlife photographer, there’s a good chance that a particular photograph at some point in time has completely taken your breath away. You might have even asked yourself, “How in the name of God did they do that?”

Source- Wiki

Well, you’ve got to remember that a vast majority of those super-awesome wildlife photographs happen as a result of patience, physical hardship, and whole lot of self-made luck. Maybe the following tips can also help you with that.

A brief overview of the points that we are going to cover in this article

1. Know your subject and gear as well as the back of your palm.

2. Know the rules | Break the rules

3. Work on the light.

4. Shoot closer or wider according to the situation.

5. The more it is, the better it becomes.

So that more or less covers the whole thing. Let’s begin now without any further ado.

1. Know your gear and subject well

Source- Flickr

Sounding like a cliché?

Maybe it does. But this point cannot be ignored at any possible cost.

Remember, the best of all the action-packed moments in wildlife photography last for only a few seconds. Hence, you need to be prepared almost like a hunter for the shot (pun unintended; referred ONLY in context to that of a camera). A slight mistake can result in the miss of a lifetime.

So know your gear (as well as your subject) well. These tips can help:

• Know the particular shutter speed of your camera at which you can obtain the sharpest image of all.

• Know the additional margins that in-lens stabilization gives you.

• Understand the ways through which you can quickly toggle between focus modes and focus points.

• Know the possible height to which you can push your camera’s ISO setting and still achieve an acceptable result right out of nothing.

• As far as knowing the subject(s) is concerned, there’s only one viable way, i.e., spending time with the subject(s). Do not just hang around for a couple of minutes. Sit down, watch them close, wait, and as soon as you see something right out of the ordinary, CLICK!

2. Know the rules | Break the rules

As far as photography is concerned, there are certain unwritten rules that find their application in almost every genre of wildlife photography.

For example,

The rule of thirds. The below photograph is taken on basis of the same rule.

Source- Flickr

Once you are aware of these theoretical rules and guidelines, you may consider breaking them to improvise and improve on your shots (depending on the circumstances).

Pablo Picasso explained this beautifully:

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

The same thing is more or less applicable here.

3. Work on the light

Since photography’s all about light, you are automatically expected to know the different ways of using light to your advantage.

Now, as far as the use of light is concerned in wildlife photography, there’s a thumb rule that you can maintain to get the best possible results in the long run, and that is:

“Shoot in the golden hours of the day, i.e., during the sunrise and the sunset.” The following image is an example to explain the efficiency of this practice for your reference.

4. Shoot closer or wider according to the situation

If you want to give your audience a better idea of the place from where you shot the photograph, shoot at a wider angle. Here’s an example for your reference:

On the other hand, closer shots (like this one portrayed in the image below) can help you create different and interesting studies of the birds or animals in your photograph.

So which technique are you going to use? It depends entirely on your situation and your choice.

5. The more it is, the better it becomes

To be honest, there’s no definite explanation for this one.

We would just say that you might get a recipe for good interaction if you throw in more species in the mix. The below image explains this beautifully indeed.

So that brings us to the end of this article for now. Hope the tips above come in handy for you. Goodbye and good luck!