5 common mistakes beginner wildlife photographers make — and how to avoid them
Wildlife photography is a constant lesson in patience and preparation. It’s about thinking intelligently, moving quietly and paying attention.
You do not need all the latest and most expensive, the most expensive in a bush for hours to get a shiny blow, but you must avoid recruit errors that even stumble the most enthusiastic beginners.
These five missteps are easy to make, and we have made them all, but fortunately, they are easy to repair. Thus, before filling your memory card with almost missions and blurred birds, take note of these tips to get the most out of your photos.
1. Forget to check the settings of your camera
You see an animal, lift the camera – Click. This ephemeral moment is what makes wildlife photography exciting. But if your camera is always set on the Astro settings last night, you just wasted your photo.
Before you start shooting, check your shutter speed, opening, ISO mode, focusing mode and shooting. Wildlife generally requires rapid shutter speeds (think of 1/1000 or faster), in continuous automatic mode and burst mode to increase your chances of getting a big blow.
And don’t trust the screen of your camera – it resides. Dazzling on the screen, combined with the limited reproduction of colors and its small size, makes it difficult to determine how precise your exposure is. Use your histogram instead for a much more precise reading. Take a balanced curve, not a cluster in both sides of the graph. The display of the histogram while you pull can help you adjust your settings accordingly if the light changes or if you change your subject.
2. ignore the light
In photography, the light is everything. It affects your exposure, color, detail, mood and even when some animals are active. However, many beginners go at noon when the sun is high and the shadows are hard.
Golden Hour, just after sunrise and before sunset, is grande time for wildlife photography. The light is softer, warmer and throws long and beautiful shadows. Fortunately, it is also when many species are the most active. Do not reject either on covered days. The clouds act as a giant diffuser, softening the light and bringing out the details of the fur and the feathers. It is also important to adjust your white balance according to the conditions.
Also consider where the light comes from. The backlight creates brilliant contours around fur and feathers, while the lateral light adds texture and depth.
3. Get closer
Getting closer to an animal can look like the lens, but getting around too close can scare your subject, modifying your behavior or even causing harm, especially with nesting birds or stressed animals. And all you find is a photo of a sad and empty newspaper. Without forgetting, if you get closer to an animal that the narrow focus distance of your goal, you will not be able to focus on it.
Instead, use longer objectives or bring the fauna by installing a bird feeder or a source of water in your backyard. If you know where an animal will appear, you can pre-draft the shooting and wait at a distance. Animals that do not know that you are there act naturally, and natural behavior makes better photos.
In addition, the context is important. A large photo that shows an animal in its natural environment can be much more powerful than a tight close -up of its face.
4. Excessive exaggeration on zoom or reframing
At the other end of the spectrum, do not be that far from it that you should count on the zoom or the reframing strongly. The zoom lenses are brilliant, but as the chocolate cake, they are better moderate.
The zoom in the whole path amplifies each oscillation, especially if you pull on the hand. And if you don’t have a tripod, each slight movement can become a blurred photo. If you zoom in, use a quick shutter speed and stabilize on a wall, a rock or a tree – or any surface is available for you.
You can count on culture to some extent, but only up to a point. Resolutions in most modern cameras allow you to recreate in about 30 to 40% before starting to notice a significant drop in quality, especially for web use. Higher resolution cameras can afford a higher culture, so it all depends on the number of megapixels of which your camera is blessed and the quality of the lens you use.
5. Do not pay attention to your composition
You have the light, the moment, the right parameters – but the photo still does not shit. For what? Low composition.
It may seem natural to center each subject in the middle of the frame. He is sure and often looks very good, but security can be boring. Using the third party rule, place the slightly off -center animal to draw the eye and create a balance. Think about where the animal looks or moves, and leave the space in this direction to build tension and flow. Larger shots can be more cinematographic and tell a story, so be creative.
Do not forget to check the background and the edges of the frame. Is it clean or distracting? Use a shallow depth (wide opening) to clear it, or change your angle to simplify the scene. Beware of substantive or leading elements, such as wandering herbs, which create distraction in your image. You also don’t want the horizon to plow directly in the animal’s head. Another way to instantly improve your composition. Looking at an animal, not down, makes the spectator feels part of the moment and the blow is instantly more engaging.
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