The secrets to great wildlife photographs

What are the most important things to focus on when you are planning a wildlife photography shoot?

Here are my suggestions:

Research - The better you know your subject, the better the chances that you can create stunning images that create a strong emotional connection with the viewer.

Local Guides and Safety - You want to have the best possible experience. Good local guides will know how to track the animals and help you to stay safe.

Know your equipment - Be very familiar with the gear that you take and be sure to know how to get the best from it in different environments.

Practice... a lot! - If you can't practice your photography (with the gear you will be taking) on the animals you will be photographing, photograph birds in flight.

Get inspiration from other photographers. These are the photographers I mentioned:

Underwater photography: Shane Gross and Laurent Ballesta (underwater), Frans Lanting (wildlife and landscapes), and Marina Cano (colour and black and white images).

You can also check out some of my earlier podcasts with Suyash Keshari and Karolina Noree.

And, if you’re looking for step-by-step instructions, take a look at my eBook.

I hope you enjoy it. 

It's time for another podcast...

Remember that there is a new podcast every Friday.

So, drop me any comments and questions you might have, either in the comments or via my email, graham@ge.photography, and I will answer them in a future podcast.

And, please remember to Like and Subscribe.

Transcript

>> Graham: 0:08

Foreign. Hello again and welcome to another podcast. If you've been listening every week, you'll know that I've been in Zimbabwe and the last two podcasts were recorded in Zimbabwe. I know the sound quality wasn't quite what I normally strive for, but I was doing the best of what I had, which is partly my fault. anyway, in this podcast I want to talk to you about wildlife photography. particularly as I've just come back from five weeks actually away in different places doing. It's just the way projects overlapped and I thought it would be good to just go back to basics again. And also because certain things are ah, fresh I still make mistakes, often now because I get distracted by other things that are going on. So the idea of this podcast is to just talk through what you need to think about to get really good wildlife, photographs, if that is your thing. Before I go any further, please remember to like and subscribe. less than, Certainly less than 5% of my listeners actually subscribe and it really does help me out a lot. So if you do find these podcasts useful, please like and subscribe and maybe you can give me a comment if you'd like to give me some feedback. Okay. So when I talk about wildlife photography, the first thing I always start with is just preparation and really the things that I include in that are first of all learning about the animals. You may know the animals that you're planning to see quite well or you might be quite new to them. You might not know in fact what you're going to see. So it's always a good idea I think, to get some background knowledge to the animal, whether it's, it's kind of behaviors, when you're likely to see it, what time of day, particularly the behaviors you're likely to see. Because if it's a predator, obviously, the really exciting photographs, at least from my side are photographs where the predator is, is doing its thing, it's hunting. And those opportunities tend to be fairly rare and it's very rewarding when you, if you are lucky enough to catch something happening. If you are looking at something like humpback whale, a, breach is really spectacular. So these are the kind of things, this is sort of basic stuff but have an idea of what you are likely to see and get some inspiration for your photographs. Obviously a lot of it, I'd say, probably 80, 90% of what I shoot is just down to what's available at the time with so for example with a whale it will either breach or it won't. What's behind it will depend a lot on where you are obviously, but wild animals often don't follow the script. So you might have positioned yourself offshore so that you've got a, you're set up for breach with some, some background coastline or something in the background there. And of course the whale will breach on the offshore side of where you are. So while it's useful to get some ideas and plan, it's. You have to remember that most of what is going to happen is likely to happen spontaneously. So you do need to be ready to shoot what you can. Having said that, I was out on a whale watching boat, a close friend whale watching and she got a really good picture of a breach with the moon in the background, which was just something she spotted. She's a really good photographer and she was able to come away with that. So it is about when you are getting a shot, do a bit of planning, do get ideas, do look on Instagram or anywhere else where you find inspiration and have those kind of pictures just in the back of your mind in your back pocket ready to go. But also when you're there, when you are ready to when you're at the scene, take a look around, look at what's there, what would make a good background if you're able to get everything to line up, are there. What, what is the light doing? Obviously photography is all about light. So taking advantage of any interesting effects that the light is providing is really important because it's, that's one of the things I believe that separates good photographs from just the ordinary stuff. Ordinary stuff, People just shoot what's in front of them. They don't really give much thought to background, to what's going on around how do you tell the story. So visual storyteller again. And how do you put the animal into context? Can you make how does the, how does the viewer get some sort of connection with the animal? So all of that goes into the planning side and the preparation. And I do believe that if you spend a little bit of time just getting ideas that will serve you very well when it comes to the actual shoot itself. Because often things can happen pretty quickly and if you're not prepared then you're likely to miss things that afterwards you just really regret. Okay, so that's the animal side. Now I could talk a lot more about this and I do in other podcasts, in workshops that kind of thing. But I also want to talk about gear because this is important, that you have the right gear with you. And by that I basically mean anything that you can take with you. So the most obvious one is your camera and lenses. What do you need? Where will you be? what's the situation? You might not have many lenses to choose from, so your lens choice might be pretty much made for you. Or you might have a choice of lenses. So what do you want to take? What can you take if you're flying somewhere? Most photographers are not happy about putting expensive camera gear into checked baggage. But obviously carry on allowances are pretty limited, normally seven or eight kilos. So if you're going to take a camera and a big lens, that's probably most of your carry on allowance gone. And of course there are other things you might want to take with you. So I always carry a laptop. I've got a couple of solid state one terabyte drives that I use to back up all of my photographs. And they certainly were in full use while I was away. now when it comes to SD cards, some people would like to take extra SD cards. I tend to not do that. and what I do with memory and I've spoken about this before, but just, just so that you understand how I work, I have my Canons. Take an SD card and that's gone out of my head. The flashcards that gone out of my head wouldn't you know, anyway, there's two cards in there and I always get the biggest capacity and fastest cards that I can afford. I usually buy them with the camera body so I know everything will work together. If you have an older body and you start adding bigger cards, you might find that the camera isn't able to write to them. you might be able to get around that with a software update on your camera. But just be a little bit careful of that if you can. It's good to just check that the camera will support that card before you commit to buying it. flash drive is what I was trying to think of. So flash drive and SD is what's in my cameras. And I used to write to both simultaneously. These days I tend to write to one and when that's full it will just go on to the next card. if you're away for an extended period, and by that I mean probably a few days, but anywhere where you likely be taking hundreds or even thousands of images, you need to just think about how you're going to handle that number of images. And certainly with the trip I've just been on, my card started to fill up. So I was deleting what was on the cards in the camera. I obviously made sure I'd backed everything up on my solid state drives but in fact even my laptop wouldn't carry everything. So I had to transfer things to the laptop from the camera, then from laptop to solid state drive and then I was deleting the, the previous version. So that's why I have two solid state drives. That gives me two backups basically. So do have a think about how you're going to handle a lot of images if you're in that sort of situation. Now power is another thing. And always take the right power adapters. I stupidly got my power adapters mixed up and had the wrong stuff with me. So I had to improvise while I was away in one location. So it is always good to just make sure you know what the power, what the, the mains, plugs sockets are and you have the correct adapter. Because if you are going to another country, if you say use UK normally and that country doesn't use them, if something else, you obviously want to be able to charge your batteries and do things like that. Something I found very helpful. It's something I bought a few years ago, but it was a USB charger for my Canon batteries. And that came in very handy when I realized I had got the wrong adapters with me. And I was already out in the bush at that point so I was having to improvise quite a bit. But I did have access to USB power so that that didn't mean that I could charge my, keep my batteries charged and I was shooting quite a lot so that, that was important. So just look through all the gear that, that you want to take and are you able to power it? Are you able to store your images if your storage in your camera gets full, if you prefer to just use additional SD cards or flash drives then fine, it's really whatever works for you. But this, this is how I work because it means I'm carrying a small number of items and the solid state drives will carry a lot, hold a lot of images. another thing I also. So basically I've been to Zimbabwe which, which if you listen to the last two podcasts, those two were recorded actually out in the bush in the camp Ridge camp where we were. And after that I was in Australia photographing Wales. not that that was too successful because there'd been a, I think a mini cyclone off the coast. And it really seemed to quieten everything down for the few days that I had, except for the last day I went out, but I was then photographing bears and wolves in Finland. And so to do that I was in a hide. Now if you've not been in a hide before, there are some things you need to think about. And certainly my experience of hides you are set up with the ability to put a tripod head on something that you can screw into in the hide. So normally there's a shelf of some sort with a standard tripod screw that will go up into the head and then you take your head along. And for me basically, the the, the ball head, the ball mount head is the one I prefer because it gives you a lot of movement options. But you do remember you need obviously to take it with you. So that's just something to think about. Do you need to provide a tripod head if you're going to hide? The other thing I would say is in addition to just regular cleaning gear and that kind of thing, which I always like to take something my tip there because I wear glasses. I have cleaning fluid for my glasses. I tend to use that on the on my lenses. I always have neutral density filters on the end of my lenses so if anything does get damaged or scratched it's just the filter and not the lens glass. And at my local optician I can just get that fluid refilled free of charge. So to me that's quite a useful solution to to have, excuse the pun. So have a think about all that stuff. The photography gear plus the ancillaries that you need to make sure it all works. and again in dust environments I've spoken about this before. I use a spray cover. So this is one that's actually designed to stop spray getting on the camera. And it's got an elasticated open end that fits around the one end of the lens. So I'm using it with my 100400 on my Canon ES5DS. And so that will, it's got a bit of elastic we'll strap on and we strap it onto the lens hood. Always keep the lens hood on in case I bump the end of the lens. Then I'm only bumping the plastic of the lens hood. once you've got that on this Cover then pulls over the whole lens over the body of the camera and there's a special sort of viewfinder, eyepiece that goes with this kit and it just kind of clamps the spray cover in place so that everything is, is you know, where it needs to be. Now a couple things about that. One is it is a bit more, it's a bit of a nuisance to get to the camera quickly. M. So if you are going to be taking photographs and things can happen quickly, I would recommend leaving the camera on. you can use an auto power off. If I'm shooting whales I always have that turned off because a well breach happens in a couple of seconds and by the time if the camera has gone into a sleep M mode by the time it's woken up again, the breach is finished. So if you've got the ability and the battery capacity to not have to turn the camera off at all, I probably recommend that because then you're just good to go. If you've got my. The zoom lens has a lock on it that's always unlocked. So I can just slide the lens straight away and get the kind of optical crop that I want with the lens. so think about those kind of things, how you're going to use it in practice. I know other photographers, I've been with other photographers in the wild, they don't use a lens cover. And again it's whatever works for you. I do it because I just find where there's a very fine dust and that was definitely the case in Zimbabwe. that tends to creep inside the camera. With the best hole in the world, it will get in there. I have had problems with connection between the body and the lens itself and I've had to take the lens off, clean the contacts, then put it all back together again. Obviously you don't really want to be doing that when you're in a vehicle. if you're out on a four wheel drive and if it's a dust environment it's just not a good situation to be in. So I am a little bit cautious on that one. Possibly over cautious but I've not had a problem when I've been using that cover. So these are the. So you've got the camera gear, you've got the. Then the ancillaries around it. and again tripod. You might need to think about taking a full tripod depending on where you're going and what's available. So that's another thing to Think about, obviously this stuff all has to be carried, whether it's on the, if you're going to, on a flight or you might have to hike to get to where you're going. So obviously all of these things come in. And if you are hiking then I definitely recommend looking at a good quality camera bag and get one that has hip straps because what that does, it will put the weight of what's in the bag onto your hips and not on your shoulders and your back. And if you do suffer from back problems, or if you don't want to suffer from back problems, I recommend you get something that has good hip straps and you can then carry your gear quite comfortably for a long distance. Just other things to think about are the clothing. So again, I was in Zimbabwe. People tend to think of Africa as being quite hot, but first thing in the morning it wasn't. I was there in the southern winter and it was actually quite cool. Probably 10 to 15 degrees in the morning. It definitely got down to 10 a few nights it was quite cold. And what I noticed as well when the sun was out, once things had warmed up, it was nice warm, there was no problem. But as soon as the sun started to go down, as soon as we started getting close to sunset, the moment you dipped out of the sun, out of the direct sunlight, the temperature would drop by about 10 degrees straight away. So you're instantly cold. So think about what you're wearing in the vehicle. I ended up with a fleece that I thought really I'd only be wearing on the flights because I get cold on the long haul flights and ended up wearing that pretty much every day. I was wearing it in the morning when I got up, put it on in the afternoon when things started to cool down because I was in an open four wheel drive. We had the windscreen flat so that we could see what was going on. But of course when you're driving, even if you're not driving very fast, you've got a lot of wind chill going on so you can feel quite cold there. So again, something warm, maybe a couple of layers, a T shirt, maybe a thin shirt over the top, just something to provide a bit of insulation. So all of that needs to go in the bag. And then the other thing that is definitely worth considering is taking a sleeping bag. Certainly if you are going to be spending the night in a hide, which I was doing when I was in Finland with the bears and wolves. We were actually wolverine But I couldn't get any pictures because it was way too dark. but it got, it did. When we first got in the, the Heights, the sun had been on them. It was like getting into a sauna. It's July, it's the, the, the northern summer. And it was pretty warm. And you. I was, you know, pretty much down to my shorts just to try and stay comfortable because it's quite sweaty and humid as well. So that's one side of it because the other side is that, once the sun does go down, it starts to come cool off. And by the time you get to the early hours of the morning, it's actually pretty cold. And I was very happy to get in a sleeping bag just to try and get, warm so I wasn't shivering. And of course you, it's ideal if you're with one or two other people because then you can take it in turns to sleep while somebody's keeping an eye out for things to happen. so that was the case on the first night that I was in a hide. went to another location for the second night and I was on my own in the hide. And m. There I just set an alarm, a vibrating alarm on the phone to try and wake me up at 2 o' clock because that's sort of when wolverines have been seen. But, that night I wasn't so lucky with the animals. They didn't show though we did have a lot of bears first thing, so that was good. So these are just kind of things to think about if you are using your smartphone for either photography or just to wake you up. Do make sure you have it on silent. use vibrate to alert you to things. the camera, if you have got a silent mode, try that. I was absolutely sure that the, the animals that I was photograph when I was in the hide could hear the camera. Even though it was on silent mode, it's still making a noise. It's dslr, so you, you know, the mirror flipping up will make a noise, regardless of what else you do. So just be aware of those kind of things and have a think about what is important for you to take. obviously that you want to come back with really good photographs, but it's really hard to do that when you're freezing cold, you're half asleep, you're fumbling around in the dark, and trying to get a good shot. So you really want to help yourself in as many ways as you can. And I guess the final Thing that occurs to me at this point, although I've just thought of something else. But what I want to talk about at this point is just to be familiar with your camera. And I say this a lot and I've spoken about this in other podcasts, but really make sure you know your camera, know where the key settings are. Some of them might be on the camera body itself, some might be in one of the short menus that you have. others might be in the deeper menus. Normally there's a, on Canon, it's an info button which gives you, access to commonly changed items so that you don't have to dig through menus. But there are other things where you do need to go into the menu. So think about that, Think about how you set the self timer if you want to do that. how do you check your battery capacity? You know, where's, how good are your batteries doing? You know, how much do you need to think about recharging them, how much space have you got on your storage? All this kind of stuff, just the day to day stuff. But make sure you know where all that is. And then of course using the camera, make sure you're using the appropriate mode. Now I tend to use, aperture priority. I've spoken about that before. A couple of reasons. One is I'm primarily interested in depth field. If I've got good lighting and I've got a good subject, I really want to have my subject's eyes in focus and then everything else to some extent or another out of focus. Because we connect with other people, with animals, with everything else through eye contact. So the eyes always need to be in focus. If you're using the rule of thirds, remember that. Remember to position. Ah. I generally work on the eye that's closest to me. If there's an angle, head's at an angle. If not, I'll just pick an eye and go for it. but do think about your composition. Do something a bit more interesting than just slapping the animal in the middle. Sometimes that will work. It, depends on the situation. But a lot of times it's kind of predictable. So it's good to do something different. So make sure you are really familiar with your camera, you know how to use it, you know, how the stabilizing works. If you have that on your lens or on your body, all of those things so that when you're there you can focus on the animal literally. think about the composition, think about the image, but not having to try and remember how to do things on the camera. That's not the time to be doing that. Okay. So there was one other thing, and I've gotten it again, so I'll no doubt remember that. And that will be another podcast. So those are really the key things. So I think. So just to recap, first of all, you really want to do your research on whatever it is you're photographing. So you know the kind of behaviors. Have a look at other people's ideas, get inspired. other people. There's a lot of really good photographers out there, and a lot of them have really good ideas and we all steal from each other. So, have a look around. If you find images that you really like, think about how that photographer achieved that result and then maybe practice even doing that before you go. So that that kind of composition, or it might be the use of light, depth of field, whatever it might be, you know how to achieve that in the moment when it comes to taking the photograph. So do your research on the animal and get inspired, have some ideas, and then when you're there, do have a look, look at what's around, look at the lighting. This picture of the humpback with the moon, I thought was really nice. It was a brilliant idea. I hadn't thought of it. and it was really a nice photograph. And it's one of those as well that's different because I can't remember seeing too many photographs of humpback whales breaching with the moon behind them. So, you know, these are really good ideas and, get inspired. But do have a good look around. Think about how you can use the background. If you're in a hide, obviously the background is going to be what it is, and then the animal will position itself wherever it goes. But think about options. How can you use the lighting? Maybe certain parts of the background are highlighted and you can use that in some way. So do have a look around? Do you have a think about it? When it comes to gear, obviously think, about how you, first of all, what gear you're going to take. If you've got a choice, what do you need? What kind of lenses are likely to work best? If you're in a hide, if you're photographing at night, flash will be out. If it's wildlife, that's just not an option. So that does mean that in the dead of night, you're probably not going to get too much. Even with, the camera as fully sensitive as you can make it, the lens as fast as possible. Biggest Possible aperture, there is a limit to what you're going to be able to shoot. And that is just the, you know, that's the reality of it. So there may well be periods where you can't take photographs. And if you're purely there for the photographs, that might be when you sleep. if you are there for the experience of the animals, then maybe not. But do think about what you can do. If you've got access to something that's better in low light conditions, think about taking that. But do have a think about the conditions you'll be in. So lighting, temperature, how do you stay warm? Do you need to do anything to keep your batteries warm? Because if you're in very cold conditions, your battery performance will drop off. So if you can, I would always recommend having a spare battery and keep it somewhere close to your body, put it in a pocket so that it's benefiting from your body heat. And then when you pop it into the camera, you'll, you'll get a bit more out of that, out of that battery. so yeah, clothing, think about that. Are you going to be exposed? Always take sunscreen. so think about, you know, you don't want to get sunburnt, you don't want to get injured in any way. So again, I always recommend going with a good guide and listen to what they say, follow their instructions, get to know a bit about how you, how you behave when wildlife is around. If you're in a four wheel drive, you don't stick your arms and legs out. If you're in a hide, you don't stick your arm out through the hole that the camera's looking through. You know, you don't do stupid things if you, if you do that, you, you, you could well, get injured and that's not going to be a good, a good outcome. So use a bit of common sense. you know, be, be mindful of where you are. You are with wild animals. They can be unpredictable and you don't want to be doing anything that will provoke them or make perhaps a tense situation any worse than it needs to be. And these situations do happen occasionally. And if you're listening to the previous podcasts, I kind of jokingly referred to it, but we did have some moments where with a couple of different elephants where they were a bit tense with us. And again we were with a guy, Dean, who, you know, we had that, that conversation. But Dean, joking aside, knows exactly what he's doing and he's someone I've quite literally trusted with my life and have no concerns about doing that again either. He knows exactly what he's doing. And, unfortunately, there are guides out there who are not good. There's A couple of ladies were killed in Zambia by an elephant a few weeks ago. And, this, from what I've heard, is down to an inexperienced guy doing the wrong things. and unfortunately, this is the situation with some, safari lodges or some of these companies that take people out on, walks in, in the bush. these guys are inexperienced. They don't really know what they're doing. And then when things go wrong, people get killed. So always look for a company that has a good reputation. try and get feedback if you're thinking about doing a project or even going on a safari with someone, with a company asked to speak to one of their previous, customers, previous clients. I've had people call me about, different projects I've been on just to get, my view on it. And I'll be honest, obviously can't always guarantee that the person they put you on to will give you a straight answer. But it's well worth the time. Certainly, if you have any doubts, I would really check them out thoroughly. And, whatever the red flag is that's come up for you, I'd probably listen to that as well. Because ultimately, your life is dependent on. On what these people are doing. So be sensible both when you're planning your trip and when you're there. be very aware of the clothing that you need. You know, stay comfortable, stay safe, don't get sunburnt. yeah, you know, stay warm or stay cool. Make sure you drink lots of water. I always carry, I've got an insulated metal one liter, flask that I had for a few years now that ended up at the top of Kilimanjaro with me. But I've used. I generally have that with me when I go somewhere just so I've got water, because I like to stay hydrated. I have had kidney stones a couple of times. they're not much fun. I will definitely vouch for that. So the best way to do it is to just drink. Drink enough water. I know some people on one trip I was on, they were drinking lots of water, like ridiculous amounts. And all you're doing is flushing all the minerals out of your body. So you then need mineral supplements. It's stupid. So look at the color of your pea. To use a technical term. so if you don't know, and it's actually a really good tip, because the body, if it doesn't have a lot of water, and it's taking out, obviously stuff it doesn't need, your pee will be kind of orangey and dark. You really don't want that. If, you're. If it is orange and dark, you need to drink straight away. That actually means you're seriously dehydrated. Once you're thirsty, you're already significantly dehydrated. It means you do need to drink. your pee should be a light straw color. So not completely clear, but a light straw color. And, that means your body is all good. but if it's. Yeah, you know, just, just check it out. If you're not familiar with, how you look at how dehydrated you are or what the signs are, then do a bit of research on that, because that is really important. yeah, so make sure that you do look after yourself. And, I haven't spoken about vaccinations and that kind of thing, but do make sure that you check what vaccinations are needed, make sure you have them, make, sure you've got visas where you need them, all that kind of stuff. Okay, that's it for this podcast. I hope you found that useful again. Please remember to like and subscribe. That would make a big difference to me. As I've said, most people and thousands of people listen to these podcasts, and almost none of you subscribe. So please subscribe and I'll talk to you in the next. The next podcast. Bye for now. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Now, I just want to say thank you for tuning in and joining me in the, Wildlife and Adventure Photography podcast. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please give me a. Like a subscribe, maybe tell your friends, and by all means leave a comment. And if there is a subject you would like me to cover in the future, please let me know and I'll, be very happy to do my best. So thanks again for, joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next podcast. Bye for now.