Improve Your Animal Photography  

There is nothing quite as thrilling on a journey as meeting one of the many fascinating species of animals found in nature. The key to shooting good animal photos is to possess sufficient knowledge of the species you are trying to capture and to be able to find knowledge about the locality. If you then add a pinch of patience and a little luck your photos are as good as taken. 

Exotic Animals
The waves are almost two meters high and a cool autumn storm is whipping up froth. We have embarked on an albatross safari off the coast of New Zealand.  Suddenly we spot the outline of a colossal bird on the horizon. The albatross glides silently through the air its weight carried by its four meters of fascinating wing span. It moves in the exact way our guide told us it would, which makes following it with the camera much easier. The waves make shooting difficult, but with the aid of the information provided by our guide we succeed in bagging several good photos.
 

An albatross shot in the pacific off the coast of New Zealand.
 
A Big World

Grizzly bears in Canada, lions on the Serengeti in Africa or albatrosses on the pacific off the coast of New Zealand. Mysterious and colourful creatures in the secretive and inaccessible rain forests of Central America. Musk oxen in Greenland or herds of rein deer in northern Norway. The possibilities of experiencing exciting animals are numerous regardless of the destination of your voyage.

        For more than a century exotic animals have attracted tourists, adventurers, and anyone with a longing for distant places. To experience animals in their natural habitat is of course thrilling, but for most of us this is not enough. We want to bring home smashing animal photos so that we can show our bull’s eyes to family and friends.
 

A young lioness in Botswana. Nikon D2Xs, 80-400 mm, f/5.6.

 
Ask for Advice

Sometimes you simply have to recognise  your limitations and the fact is that you are often quite the rookie the first time you arrive in a new territory with your camera. This goes for amateurs as well as for professionals. You need more than ordinary luck in order to see grizzly bears on your first hike in the Rockies or to walk straight up to the rare red-eyed leaf frog on your first trip to the rain forest.

        You will probably save yourself a lot of trouble by asking one of the locals for advice. Tell him what exactly it is you are looking for. If you do not speak the language of the locals you can try showing them photos in, for instance, guide books with photo of the subject you are looking for. In most cases, the locals will be able to tell you exactly where, when, and how to look for the animal.

 

The knowledge of a guide is invaluable when you want to shoot good animal photos.

 

When you get in touch with people who know something about the locality you should also try to get some information about the behaviour of the animal you are looking for. This is particularly important if you are looking for an animal that is potentially dangerous. If you are planning to take photos of a poisonous snake or a musk ox you need to know the warning signals the specific animal will give before it attacks in self-defence.

        The locals will also be able to tell you if you should simply stay away from an animal, this, for instance, applies to the great bears of Canada. Good photos of bears are almost exclusively shot by people who have a thorough knowledge of bears and who are shooting from a great distance using powerful and expensive tele lenses.

  

Shoot, and shoot more

When you are taking photos of animals you very often need to take many many photos before you bag the perfect shot. The more active the subject the more photos you will need. When working with particularly challenging subjects, such as, for instance, shooting fast flying seabirds from a rocking boat it is not unusual for a professional photographer to need to produce 200-250 photos before getting the one that is just right.

   

A curious seal shot in the sunset.

 

Digital Cameras gives you a significant advantage when you want to shoot animals. Armed with your digital camera you can fire away without having to worry about the cost of film. If you own a memory card with a large capacity you will often be able to store several hundreds if not even several thousands of photos. Get into the habit of changing your memory card before it is full. It is simply much too frustrating to lose the perfect shot of a lion bringing down a gazelle just because the camera informs you that there is no room left on your memory card.

 

Look Out

When you are hunting for exciting or different subjects in the rain forest, on the savannah or between the peaks of the Alps you need to look where you are going. This advice may seem rather self evident, it really is not.

        Many people have a tendency to look straight ahead, and only straight ahead. Even more so if you are passing through unfamiliar surroundings with slippery roots or stones that you need to get around. When you are only looking straight ahead you miss out on a lot of things. Consequently, you should get in the habit of looking down, looking up into the canopy or turning around to take a look back in the direction you came from. Or get down on your knees and take a really close look at all the little creatures crawling all over the forest floor. You could also climb a tree and get a look at everything from above.

        By changing your perspective you will be the first to discover subjects that most people walk right by. The snake hanging down from a branch above the trail you are following, the frog right there on that leaf or the bird hiding in the neighbouring tree.

 

Snake times two. Nikon D100, 105mm, 1/250 second, f/2.8.

 

Use all Your Senses

You would do well not always to rely on your eyes when you are looking for good animal photos. The rain forest provides a good example of this. To the untrained eye the rain forest is just a green mass and nothing more. You can walk for hours without seeing anything besides green leaves, green boughs, and green moss covered rocks.

        If you are however travelling with someone local you will see many exciting animals. There is, however, no need to despair and it is probably not an indication that you need glasses. One of the secrets of the locals is that they have learnt to use their ears and their nose just as well as they use their eyes.

 

This tiny leaf frog in the rain forest of Costa Rica was shot inside the tip of a leaf in the middle of the night. It is less than a centimetre long and finding it would be completely impossible if you were not able to hear where it was hiding.

 

Many animals are experts at hiding either by using clever camouflage techniques or by finding clever hiding places. If you cannot locate them by using your sight you need to use your ears instead. Most animals have a call that is unique to them and which can be used for locating them. If you are able to learn to go by sound you can often save yourself many hours of fruitless searching, and this will even make it possible to find nocturnal animals.

 

If you found reading about animal photography interesting you will probably also enjoy reading about landscape photography and underwater photography.

 

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