Wildlife Shooting Tips

I am going to Yellowstone on January 25th for 10 days of which 2 will be spent photographing wolves. I'm very excited about this opportunity, but since I do not have much experience photographing wildlife I love to hear from you experienced photographers. Tips on metering, camera settings, etc. would help me calm my nerves.

Thanks,
Kelly

Just pay attention to your histogram for metering. If the sky is overcast, the light will be very even and consistent which will make things easier. Don't be surprised if you don't get close enough to photo wolves. They are very wary, spread over a large area, and the snow is deep making the going slow. You'd be ahead to either rent or buy snowshoes. There are buffalo around many places too. If you see a large bull all by itself, stay clear, They will kill you. No joke. Many lakes etc. will be frozen over, but I'd advise against trusting ice in Yellowstone. Might be a hot spring under it. Don't forget your ice fishermen cleats.


Kent in SD

Fortunately we have hired an experienced guide who we used in the summer to view the bears. The bears were way too far off for our camera's but we did enjoy watching them safely through a spotting scope. Our guide pretty much guaranteed close viewing this time of year because it's the wolves mating season and they are more interested in mating and less wary of people. I would really like to know what shooting, drive mode, etc.people use when photographing wildlife.

I generally use the same settings for wildlife that I do for everything else, mostly because I'm familiar with them. I'll suggest putting the camera in "A" mode (aperature priority,) and lock in your len's fastest aperature (might be f5.6, might be f2.8 depending on your lens.) I would also dial in ISO 800 depending on what camera you use. What this will do is give you a very fast shutter speed. For drive mode, I usually just use the one at a time one. If it's an action shot I think most people would use Ch (continuous, high speed) in short bursts.


Kent in SD

It would help to know what camera/lens you plan to use, but Kent pretty much nailed it for you.
Just try to keep your settings and exposure method really simple and stay with what you are most familiar. As Kent said, when shooting wildlife, a shallower depth of field (f4 to f5.6) is fine, as no detail is needed in the bg and it gives you a faster shutter speed. I'll emphasize that how high you go on the ISO very much depends on your camera. Focus on the eyes. And take some hand and foot warmers (the ones that fit in your gloves and boots). Wear lots of layers; protect your face and eyes from the cold, too. Keep your batteries and cards in a pocket close to your body. Good luck and have fun!

Pretty much ditto that. Aperture Priority, shallow f-stop, and I don't go above ISO 400, but that's just my pref.

I always try to stay at eye-level with the animal. If it's a bison then shooting standing up is fine, wolf and I'm at knee level, marmot and I'm on my belly.

In places like Yellowstone I always keep my long lens mounted just in case a critter pops up, even if I'm doing a bunch of landscape work and I'm sick of constantly swapping lenses. Getting close to wolves in YS is a tall order, but I've never been on a shoot where nature didn't give me an unexpected nugget.

You're going on a wildlife dream trip, so have fun in the American Serengeti!

Great tips.....I have a Canon 5D Mark ll and the lens is a Canon EF 300 2.8 with a 1.4...I'm hoping this will get me close enough. Kent...with the ISO 800...I've been reading that the higher the ISO the more noise..this is an issue?

I've been reading all the helpful comments and thought I'd jump in: There is always the possibility of more noise at higher ISOs, but it's relative to the camera. With your 5DII, 800 (even 1600) may be the old 400. I used to have noise trouble as low as 400, but since upgrading I do well at 1600 under most conditions.
I've been wondering about cold weather shooting advice for Kelly as regards her camera. Maybe some of you hearty Yankees could address camera handling in extreme cold.
Good shooting, Kelly!

With the 5D you can easily get away with ISO 800. That will give you a faster shutter speed, which translates into sharper photos. As for cold, Yellowstone is pretty far west and generally not all that cold. Seems to me it's likely to be in the zero to +35F range. Wife & I used to go there in winter because it's warmer than where we live, LOL! Keep a couple of spare batteries in an inner shirt pocket, and keep all camera gear inside a tight bag for an hour or so when you bring it inside. My camera gear just stays out in my car all the time this time of year. Be careful to not breath on viewfinders and lenses if it's near zero, or they will fog over. If it does happen to start getting colder than 10 below, turn off your autofocus and use the LCD review very sparingly to conserve battery power. The coldest I've been out with a digital camera was 28F below, and I had no issues. I was out with my D300 for three hours the other night when it was 24F below and the camera & lenses (as well as my monolights) performed flawlessly. I did change the camera battery about once every 30 minutes is all. I used manual focus and set the camera so the LCD didn't automatically come on after each shot too. I doubt it will hit 10 below in most of Yellowstone, though.


Kent in SD

Keeping it simple makes a lot of sense. What metering mode would you suggest? Also, we have not traveled with our camera gear by air before and plan on taking most of our gear on board with us, but not sure about the tripods. Thinking of taking the ballheads off and carrying them on board and putting the tripods in our check in luggage? Both of us will be carrrying camera gear on onboard..suggestions?

Thanks again,

Kelly

I'd also suggest another option for camera modes. When I photograph wildlife, especially if the light is somewhat steady, I typically use manual exposure. I will first make a test exposure in Aperture Priority, just to get a base idea. Then use a ratio of that Av exposure in manual mode. It gives me more control this way. I still check my exposures from time to time ("chimping" - oo oo oo!) and make adjustments on the fly. I also usually use evaluative metering for this. If you're looking for a silhouette, then just expose for the sky behind and shoot away! Hope this helps.

Oops, didn't see your other question Kelly - regarding tripods/heads/and flying with gear. I ALWAYS take my gear carry on in a photo backpack that is carry on size legal, be sure to check with your airline as to their regulations. Then I pack my tripod and head in my checked luggage. Remember, airlines have a carry on weight limit, and a fully packed photographer backpack usually is over the limit. I'd suggest wearing a jacket with a lot of pockets when you check you luggage. I've been told that my carry on gear bag is over the weight limit, I just took out a few lenses and put them in my jacket pockets and had them re-weigh the pack. When the weight was fine, I'd walk around the corner and put the gear back in the bag... a little shady, yeah. But there is no way I'd check my camera gear, other than tripods.



added: I'd also take plenty of spare batteries, and keep them in closed inside pockets of your jacket WITH hand warmers. Your batteries will lose power quickly in the cold, but you can often "recharge" them by putting them in warm pockets for a little bit. Also, I'd recommend warm gloves. I am trying out new mittens (made by O.R.) that have a flap that secures to the back of your hand that will cover your fingers in a warm mitten when you need more heat.
http://www.outdoorresearch.com/site/meteor_mitts.html

What would the fastest aperture be for the Canon EF 300mm 2.8?

Dave...are the gloves by OR the Meteor Mitts? If so..I bought these for the trip...let me know how you like them!

Kelly

Kelly,,,Try to get hold of Mark Miller he's an NPN member and lives by the Norh Entrance.
I'm sure he can give you some great advice and current conditions.
I believe its www.markmillerphotos.com

Set your aperature to either f2.8 (if it's cloudy) and maybe f4 if it's sunny. What you ultimately are after is a fast shutter speed, such as 1/1,000 or even 1/2,000. If you start getting a shutter speed faster than 1/2000, I would lower the ISO down from ISO 800 to ISO 400 (but not below 400.) If you are still getting a shutter speed faster than 1/2000 with ISO 400, then start stopping down the aperature such as to f5.6. The main thing is you want as fast a shutter speed as you can get, up to 1/2000s. Faster than that speed you get no benefit, so you might as well improve image quality by lower ISO or by stopping the lens down a bit. Even 1/1000s might be plenty--I'll let others weigh in on that. As for metering mode, I would just use matrix if you are familiar with it. I generally use the same settings and everything else on a trip that I do at home. The reason is I'm familiar with those and less likely to screw up.


Kent in SD

Kelly - I agree with what Kent said about shutter speed, but with a caveat. If the animals you're shooting aren't moving much, you can get away with much slower shutter speeds. I've shot fairly immobile animals (grazing deer, standing elephants and giraffes, wading birds) as slow as about 1/100 s. Especially if you're on a good tripod, these speed shouldn't be too much of a problem. Of course, for catching action of any kind - even just an animal loping along - you'd want something more like the range Kent's talking about to avoid motion blur.

And one thing everyone's been talking around but maybe hasn't said up front - the reason you need wide open apertures (smaller f numbers) and high ISOs is because wildlife shooting is typically done in early morning/late evening when there isn't a lot of light around. It's when the animals are most active. If you find yourself shooting in brighter conditions, you may be able to use much lower ISO's and smaller apertures (higher f numbers). But usually, composition wise, you'd still want a fairly wide open aperture to isolate the subject from the background.

Kelly, the gloves look real good (and yep those are exactly the ones I got!). I think you'll be very happy with those. As others have said, the fastest aperture on that lens is f/2.8 (the lens will always list the maximum aperture on the lens itself, usually near the outer filter ring, if there is one).
You literally have lots of options when it comes to your aperture settings, but it really depends on the look/effect you are trying to achieve. Fast moving wildlife can be captured with a wide open aperture (2.8) and a fast shutter speed to be rendered very sharp even in fast motion in bright light. In dim light you may still not get a fast enough shutter speed (even with a wide open aperture) to "freeze" the action completely. Or you can go for the blurred action shot while panning with a slower shutter speed. A wide open aperture setting of f/2.8 will not only give you the fastest shutter speed possible for the lighting conditions you are in, it will also provide some separation from the foreground and background, through narrower depth of field. This is a classic look for wildlife, portrait shot with nicely blurred background. Get those, but also experiment with smaller apertures with a slightly wider lens (70-200 or wider) to get an environmental portrait shot of the wild animal in it's environment. With those, if there is not too much movement, by using a smaller aperture you will get more depth of field and help add context to the animals everyday struggle to live. I have often felt that highly blurred backgrounds can help create beautiful images, but also can remove the amazing wild animal from it's surroundings and the viewer may forget the animals tenacity and survival ability. Just my 2 cents, and too each their own. In the end, we can only educate ourselves to be well informed enough to create "our own art".

Kent thank you for all your helpful advice..and everyone else too...I feel a lot more comforatble and confident! I would like to hear more about metering modes since I don't use evaluative.. One time I did use it and couldn't figure out why my exposure compensations weren't working..and then I figured it out..the camera was also making it's own compensations on top of mine..drove me crazy! I have read that occasionally you will come across a subject or lighting which confuses evaulative..do you do manual overrides in this mode?

Thanks you SO Much...Everyone for all you help!

Kelly

Another option, which I nearly always use for landscapes, is to shoot in center-weighted or spot metering mode. I'll meter off a known value (green grass, etc.) and set my exposure off that value. Just switch it to spot or center-weighted, meter off of whatever you want to, and recompose then shoot. If whatever you are metering off of is darker than an 18% gray card, you'll need to compensate by under-exposing (since it will try to give you an exposure that is brighter than reality), and do the opposite if it is lighter than 18% gray. Again, I recommend getting a test shot if at all possible to verify your exposure - HEY, it IS DIGITAL AFTERALL!



Keep in mind, shooting in the snow, your meter will probably err on the side of underexposing the snow. It will see all that white and want to make it darker than you'll want (meters are smart... as long as know when to not pay attention to them). So you'll need to compensate by either setting a longer exposure or a more open aperture.

I consider myself mainly a winter photographer and have some thoughts on exposure. I am only familiar with Nikon meters so those are the ones I can predict. I also have experience using incident light meters for my LF gear. While a Nikon meter will sometimes do exactly what was said above, try to darken down a mostly white image, it gets a bit complicated. It seems to depend on how much white area is in the scene, if there's any really dark areas, and where both are in the frame. If a scene is almost totally blinding white snow on a sunny day, the meters I'm familiar will go nuts. Usually though there is a mix of white and really dark objects. The Nikon meters do a pretty good job of sensing the really dark and the really white, and then coming up with an exposure. It also depends some on what's in the very center of the frame since both matrix and center weighted put more importance on that. In real life, most scenes do have a good mix of snow covered areas as well as dark areas (trees, rocks, etc.) Usually the meter picks that up and does OK. Really, it comes down to really knowing your meter, and that comes from experience. Since it's so easy to take a shot and then check the histogram, that's pretty much what I do now.


Kent in SD