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In this story I would to describe my photography pipeline, what gear I use, what settings and tricks. Every photographer has each own pipeline, preferred modes and tactics to achieve best results for the style and artistic vision. And as wildlife photography is one the most complicated and demanding, it requires a time to learn and find the best personal tactics to accomplish your creativity goals.
I owned multiple cameras over the time as well as was using iPhones to make travel and family photos, but when I started wildlife photography I had to get a new camera and lenses for achieving results which I want. I started making wildlife photos with Nikon z fc camera, which is APS-C 21.51 megapixel mirrorless camera from Nikon. It's very stylish and remind old-time film cameras and always brings attention of people when you walk with it. And it's a great camera for everyday use, tourist, architecture or casual family photography and it supports wide range of Z lenses from Nikon, Tamron and Sigma. And coupled with Tamron 150-500mm telephoto lens I was able to to make some very nice wildlife photos.
However, when you progress with your photography skills you start understanding multiple important requirements which help you to achieve better results, be more suitable for wildlife environment, climate and so on. And that's why I upgraded my camera to Nikon Z f, 24 megapixel full-frame mirrorless camera. While keeping same retro-look, this came has multiple important features which helps in wildlife photography:
- Advanced Eye AF which supports wide range of animals, including birds. This feature allows camera to automatically find animal and, in best case, focus on its eye allowing to capture sharp photos, including cases when animal is moving or flying.
On this photo you can see an owl, captured in flight and still being very sharp. While it's possible with many modern cameras, it's much easy to achieve when the camera supports auto focus mode for animal and birds.
- Full-frame sensor. As wildlife photography in most cases requires using long telephoto lens, the amount of light available for the sensor is very important to achieve sharp and detailed photos in various weather and daytime conditions. Here in Ireland it's common to have cloudy days when amount of light is limited. Full frame sensor allows to capture most amount of light even when using mid-range lenses with F5-F14 apertures (especially when using tele-convertors).
- Weather sealing. When you photographing wildlife you often find yourself in many different weather conditions, including rain, snow, wind, mud and so on. Particularly in Ireland, where rains can happen almost every day. Having weather sealed camera and lens allowing to navigate and photoshoot during such conditions. Of course, you have to be careful even with a weather sealed gears especially as it's not cheap.
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- Sensor cleaning. As majority of modern full-frame cameras have in-body stabilization, it also support the sensor cleaning, allowing to "shake off" micro dust, which often gets into the camera. That helps to achieve better results for photos and reduce time for post processing.
For the lens, I use two telephoto lenses, Nikkor 180-600mm and Tamron 150-500mm tele lenses. Nikkor lens has internal zooming and supports TCs which makes it my primary wildlife lens. Tamron is extremely compact, what makes it travel friendly for various long trips. Both lenses are weather sealed and have great quality and sharpness for the price range.
For the tripod, I use Peak Design Travel Tripod which is very compact and travel friendly as well as very fast and simple in use. For the backpack, I'm currently use Tenba's 32l Axis V2 backpack which provides great internal structure for camera with big lens, as well as enough space for additional gear. Various camo clothes also helps when photo-shooting wildlife.
Even when having right gear does not guarantee getting the good photos. The photography skills and proper use of the gear, what is letting to get good and great photos. Learning wildlife photography takes time when you learning new skills, tricks, find settings which best work for you. Here are some settings which I current use when photo shooting wildlife:
- Manual Mode. Modern cameras have many different "modes", which helps to make best photos for particular situation, from Automatic, to Aperture / Shutter priority, to full Manual mode. Currently I use full manual mode with auto AF and in many cases with manual ISO mode. That flexibility allows to properly set settings for every situation and be in control to achieve best photos.
- Shutter Speed. The shutter speed settings are greatly depend on the situation, scene, lighting and animal your are trying to photograph. Obviously, fast moving animals require fast shutter speeds and these which are static allow to drop shutter speed to allow lower ISO and more light. Using low shutter speed photograph for static animals sometimes allows to make great and sharp photos even if very dark environments without bumping up ISO what leads to lose of details.
This Moorhen photo was made in a pretty dark pond, covered by tall trees and it cloudy. Using 1/60s shutter speed allowed to drop ISO to 250 and keep all the black details and sharpness.
- Aperture. As wildlife and particularly bird photographers use long telephoto lens, like 500-600mm focal length or even longer, there is no much flexibility left for various apertures. Almost always you want to use lowest possible to have more light coming to sensor. For some lens going a bit lower allows to have slightly sharper results. The other reason to going lower is trying to photograph multiple species in focus what requires larger depth of field.
- ISO. ISO allowing to increase sensor sensitivity to make photos in low light scenes. In most case, you want to keep ISO as low possible, compensation lack of the light with other settings. However in particular situations your want to set high enough ISO to allow other settings to be more flexible. Like situations with capturing birds in flight where you need to have high shutter speed to capture details and have enough lighting for auto focus to acquire the target as fast possible.
- Exposure Compensation. Exposure compensation is a very hand option to adjust lighting in various conditions to make sure your are not over or under exposing your frame. It's particularly important when photo shooting very white or black subjects
On this photo I was photo shooting an albino dove, which completely white and it's very easy to overexpose him and have details lost. Slightly adjusting exposure compensation I was able to preserve all details of his feathers.
This photo of Brent Goose is even more challenging as it has both white and black feathers and properly expose both is very difficult. For such conditions I prefer to choose right lighting condition and come on a day when you have light clouds which allows to have very soft lighting without harsh sunlight and hard shadows.
Here are another few photos, made in a challenging conditions.
There are many more settings and tips and tricks which are used for wildlife photography. Continuous learning helps to achieve better photos and grow your photography skills! I'm really enjoy to learn for the fellow photographers and find new techniques, BKMs, methods and find out about the gear they use!
