Location: Ranthambore National Park, Rajasthan India.
Camera Body: Canon 60D and Canon 7D
Lens(s): Canon 70-200 L-series and Canon 24-105 L-series
Subject: Wildlife
Photographing wildlife presents an entirely different, and more difficult, challenge from shooting people, structures (ie things that don’t move). Here are some tips I learned while shooting various animals with E-Cast Video’s David Kahn on site in Ranthambore, India.
Animals inherently do not want to be photographed. They won’t pose for you with a big smile on their faces, allow you to set up lights and wait while you adjust your f-stop, or “move just and inch to the right.” We waited close to 2 hours for our tiger to wake up from a nap. He was conveniently snoozing in thick shrubs and only his tail was visible in this time period. When he finally did wake he was only visible for 20-30 seconds, and the optimal shot window was only 5-10 seconds.
TIP 1: Be ready in advance and have patience. Have your iso and f-stop set ahead of time and take a bunch of snaps of the general area to get the desired feel beforehand. If you feel the light changing make sure you are keeping up with it. Use auto focus always, and make sure you have rapid fire shot selected. When you do get the opportunity to click, you don’t want to have to worry about racking your focus to the right spot and you want to take the most shots possible in the small window you may have available.
Animals are rarely right in front of you out in the open. I had a fantastic opportunity to shoot a peacock perched on the edge of a dead tree overlooking a temple. I snuck up with more stealth than the pink panther but of course, it flew away before I could get the shot. I also found myself literally screaming for Dave to throw over his 70-200mm lens when our tiger finally stirred.
TIP 2: Get the right lens. I was shooting with a 24-105mm in both these instances, which I quickly realized made the job far more challenging. Also, when shooting smaller animals, in our case Indian squirrels, lizards and various birds, even Dave’s 200mm lens was not adequate enough, and I recommend using a 400-500mm lens, which will allow you to keep your distance while still achieving the shot you desire.
I was able to get a beautiful picture of a gazelle. The framing was perfect, and the focus was optimal, but the white balance was set incorrectly. No big deal because I had the RAW image.
TIP 3: Shoot RAW in addition to large format jpg when photographing wildlife. Raw files capture exactly what the image chip records, so you are able to extract the maximum possible image quality, whether now or in the future. It allows you adjust various components of the picture with the same results as if you did so before the shot. In the case of the gazelle, the white balance was set to florescent light so the picture did not have that warm feeling it should have. In post, I was able to adjust the white balance to give the photo the proper color temperature.
Camera Body: Canon 60D and Canon 7D
Lens(s): Canon 70-200 L-series and Canon 24-105 L-series
Subject: Wildlife
Photographing wildlife presents an entirely different, and more difficult, challenge from shooting people, structures (ie things that don’t move). Here are some tips I learned while shooting various animals with E-Cast Video’s David Kahn on site in Ranthambore, India.
Animals inherently do not want to be photographed. They won’t pose for you with a big smile on their faces, allow you to set up lights and wait while you adjust your f-stop, or “move just and inch to the right.” We waited close to 2 hours for our tiger to wake up from a nap. He was conveniently snoozing in thick shrubs and only his tail was visible in this time period. When he finally did wake he was only visible for 20-30 seconds, and the optimal shot window was only 5-10 seconds.
TIP 1: Be ready in advance and have patience. Have your iso and f-stop set ahead of time and take a bunch of snaps of the general area to get the desired feel beforehand. If you feel the light changing make sure you are keeping up with it. Use auto focus always, and make sure you have rapid fire shot selected. When you do get the opportunity to click, you don’t want to have to worry about racking your focus to the right spot and you want to take the most shots possible in the small window you may have available.
Animals are rarely right in front of you out in the open. I had a fantastic opportunity to shoot a peacock perched on the edge of a dead tree overlooking a temple. I snuck up with more stealth than the pink panther but of course, it flew away before I could get the shot. I also found myself literally screaming for Dave to throw over his 70-200mm lens when our tiger finally stirred.
TIP 2: Get the right lens. I was shooting with a 24-105mm in both these instances, which I quickly realized made the job far more challenging. Also, when shooting smaller animals, in our case Indian squirrels, lizards and various birds, even Dave’s 200mm lens was not adequate enough, and I recommend using a 400-500mm lens, which will allow you to keep your distance while still achieving the shot you desire.
I was able to get a beautiful picture of a gazelle. The framing was perfect, and the focus was optimal, but the white balance was set incorrectly. No big deal because I had the RAW image.
TIP 3: Shoot RAW in addition to large format jpg when photographing wildlife. Raw files capture exactly what the image chip records, so you are able to extract the maximum possible image quality, whether now or in the future. It allows you adjust various components of the picture with the same results as if you did so before the shot. In the case of the gazelle, the white balance was set to florescent light so the picture did not have that warm feeling it should have. In post, I was able to adjust the white balance to give the photo the proper color temperature.
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