Hey all, Wenjun writing here! Thank you for all who came to the wildlife photography meeting! If you missed the meeting, we will go over what was discussed and hope that you can learn something about the majestic experience of wildlife photography. 

Some may ask, “So what is this, ugh, Wildlife Photography?” thinking that it is something coming straight out of National Geographic. However, it is not true. National Geographic photographers might go to all the exotic places taking photos, but one thing remains - the object. Wildlife are “wild” everywhere on planet earth. They hide between branches, play in the tall grass, dip in the ocean, glide across the horizon. They are everywhere; and what makes the difference is the spirit to go out and capture it. 

We do not always need the “big guns” and the fancy camera like the professionals, but need a sharp sense and peaceful mind to capture the wildlife shot of our own. That is why we began the meeting with the discussion of the basics of wildlife photography. 

Unlike ordinary photography with a model, the “model” in wildlife photography does not always cooperate. They do not listen to your request nor do they give you a chance to retake your shot. To translate that to photography language, that means every chance we encounter counts. We need maximum shots per unit time, we need the best focus tracking the camera can provide, we need the best tool on our part to better our chances to take a usable shot. We will discuss these three parts elaborately below. We will skip the basics of photography such as exposure setting for high speed and photo composition, as they were discussed during earlier meetings.

First of all, we can begin with something simple such as utilize the continuous shooting mode of the camera. Most modern cameras, even cellphone cameras nowadays, have continuous shooting feature. This will allow the user to capture multiple succession of photos at a fast rate - typically in the range of 4 to 9 frames per second on a DSLR and even 8 to 20 frames per second on some mirrorless cameras. The default setting on the camera is single exposure mode which will only allow one shot being taken every moment the shutter button is fully-pressed (note this, which we will differentiate with half-pressed later). How can continuous shooting mode help us in wildlife photography? It is simple. More photos being taken at the same unit time will allow us to capture more interesting moments of wildlife. This will give us more freedom of choice and sometimes larger error tolerance such as misaligned composition, misfocused, and incorrect semi-auto camera setting. Now, be sure to go to the menu of your camera and to set it to continuous mode when you shoot wildlife next time. You can easily find “how to” information online. See the image below to feel why continuous shooting mode might be important.

Wildlife photography is a game of elimination or lottery - with more entries, the more likely you are to win. 15 continuous shots in approximately 3 seconds. 9 out of 15 are closely or in-focus. 4 out of 15 have usable composition. Ultimately only 3 were selected for post processing.

Now your camera can take shots continuously. We should further increase the error tolerance by utilizing the focus tracking or continuous focus feature in the camera. For most cameras, the default focusing setting is “AF-S mode” or “Autofocus - Single”. In this setting, the camera will focus one time only every time when the shutter is half-pressed. The camera will retain the focusing distance indefinitely, until you release the half-pressed shutter or after you fully-pressed the shutter and camera finished taking the shot. Now, there is another focus mode built in to most DSLR and mirrorless - “AF-C” or “Autofocus - Continuous”. This mode will allow the preselected/autoselected focus point when the shutter is half-pressed to be adjusted and track the object found the the focus point as the object moves to various directions. This will work only when the object is still staying in the approximate area within the viewfinder during the entire interval when shutter is half-pressed. If the object goes to another area of the viewfinder and leaves the previous focus point, you will have to redo the focusing process and set the focus to the object again.

Some cameras, mostly mirrorless, have more advanced continuous focus mode - Focus Tracking. This is enabled by the modern AI builtin to the camera and it will actively seek out the object manually locked by user and track it within viewfinder wherever it moves. For example, a Sony Alpha a7 III camera can actively track the eyes of the object and adjust focus based on the eye distance. It smartly adjusts it whether the object moves closer or further and it does so at incredible speed - 0.02 second. This automates the focus tracking process for the user. With those features enabled, we can further eliminate the error on the focusing side and increase the likelihood of getting a good shot on unpredictable wildlife. Focusing only on the eyes of the objects is essential and most scrapped photos had misaligned focus.

Above here is a demo of the focus between consecutive photos. Because how fast the albatross moves at close distance in a telephoto lens, the slow autofocus system fails to catch up with its flying speed, resulting in one in-focus photo (the first photo) and one blurred photo (the second one). Both are scrapped in the end because of failed composition due to incorrect lens to such distance.

Lastly, we need to focus on the equipment selection that can help you better in the adventure of wildlife photography. We need different equipment for different wildlifes. Some are flying, some are swimming, some are running and some are simply resting. We should never disturb wildlife - capturing their natural state is our goal. Disturbing wildlife may make them panic and leave, or sometimes put you in danger. The best way to not disturb wildlife is to utilize telephoto lens and cropping. Generally, for 35mm equivalent full frame camera, 150-600 is a suitable range for most wildlife photography activity (that is 70-350 for crop frame sensor camera). A proper lens can save a lot of effort of seeking getting closer to wildlife and helps one getting more detail in the shots. However, a big lens is not always ideal. For example, a breaching whale might require regular lens to enclose into the viewfinder if close up. A tripod and gimbal head will hold the camera and lens for us at the scenario that requires we raise the lens high into the sky for an extended time (such as bird tracking). However they are not always necessary and mostly situational.

I would like to specifically point out the importance of cropping in wildlife photography. Because of many physical limitations imposed on us by nature, we are most likely to get photos that have larger foreground/background than ideal. This will require us sometimes extensively use the cropping feature. Cropping will help us to emphasize the object in the photo and provide a different and specific view to your audience. This picture here demonstrates how much we can crop a photo losslessly. To put into perspective, an iPhone takes 13 megapixels per photo, and a 4x6 photo only requires 6 megapixels to print.

Not all photos you have are the ideal shots that can be presented or post-processed right away. Most of the time, cropping is required. There are more than one way to crop a photo and it is entirely up to one's interpretation and the idea one would like to convey. Above is a penguin photo that I took cropped in both horizontal and vertical formats. The original photo is the third one.

I hope the very idea of wildlife photography can inspire more people to go out and seek nature’s most beautiful companion on our planet. Hope you guys enjoy it!

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