What This Course Will Teach You

Transcription

1 1 Module # 1 Component # 2 What This Course Will Teach You Digital Still Photography Focus on Wildlife Although the core rules of photography apply to every subject that you photograph, applying subject-specific techniques can upgrade good photographs into great ones. This course concentrates primarily on skilling you to produce consistent, high-quality wildlife photographs. This is not a beginner's course in photography, and assumes that you have the knowledge in place to use a digital camera in a mode other than "point-and-shoot" where the camera does everything for you. It is assumed that you know terms like shutter-speed, aperture, f-stop, ISO, focal-length, for instance. If you are unfamiliar with these terms, please refer to our Introduction to Photography Course. This course is based upon SLR or Film cameras, but the terms are interchangeable to modern digital cameras. In practical terms, if you are a member of a camera club associated with the Photographic Society of South Africa (PSSA), (or equivalent society in other parts of the world), you will benefit most from this course if you have a "two-star" or higher grading. If you are an absolute beginner, you will find it helpful to supplement this course with a generic introduction to photography.

2 2 Wildlife? By "wildlife", we mean fauna. In particular, we will be looking at three categories of animals birds, game-park animals and macro. Game-park animals are the ones you would typically see in a game-park or zoo - land mammals from the size of a domestic cat to the size of an elephant. Smaller animals like snakes down to insects, are covered under macro section of this course. We do not cover photography of flora in this course, nor do we cover aquatic animals. Although we will touch upon the use of Photoshop and other editing programs, we limit our discussion to their relevance in the context of wildlife photography. The main emphasis of this course is to teach you how to produce really good wildlife pictures. We start with helpful advice on equipment, then move to photographic technique and then spend the bulk of the course with field advice, before closing with processing considerations.

3 3 Who are We? This course, commissioned by WildlifeCampus has been prepared by two people Andre Nel and Dan Myburg. Andre has a B. Sc. degree in Physics, with a specialist interest in optics and photography. For the past 30 years, he has been involved in technical course development and presentation, while actively pursuing photography as a hobby. Dan has worked as a qualified game ranger for over 30 years, combining this with professional photography. He holds a PSSA five-star grading. For the most part, this course has been written in the "first person", by Andre. Andre did not do all of the actual writing, but he has been the primary editor.

4 4 Theme Solutions Each section has a core theme, and some practical advice. If you have forgotten the core advice from Component # 1, I repeat it at the end of this module to remind you. You may recall that Component # 1 ended with the words: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time". These words describe our course structure in a nutshell sections cover bites of knowledge. Strive to convert this knowledge into "field wisdom" because, above all, when you are in the field, you need to know what to do. It is tragic, yet so common to watch amateur photographers in front of a magnificent wildlife experience and not knowing what to do. Transfixed by the spectacle, they invariably resort to randomly clicking away and hoping for the best. Almost always, their photos are bad. A better approach is to know what to do BEFORE going into the field. Remember that, and when you read a section, ask yourself "How can I apply this in the field".

5 5 What to aim For Get to the stage where you think like this in the field: imagine yourself driving through a game area looking for a photograph: "My camera is on the seat, next to me in the car, set to my standard settings and ready to shoot. I do not know this area of bushveld well, so I do not know what to expect. Consequently, I have chosen to put a mm zoom lens on the camera because of its versatility. I am using a high shutter speed, to capture fast action, should any happen, and have selected Auto ISO so that the high shutter speed is valid in all lighting conditions. Both of my car windows are down, so that I can shoot left or right, at short notice. I am in an area where it is safe to drive with the windows down. I am scanning the dirt road ahead for animal spoor in the earlymorning light. Nothing significant has shown up yet, but my light is coming from over there, so that area is currently in the best light I am going to pay particular attention to the area of best light, because anything interesting that shows up there will make a good photo. But at the same time, I am reading clues from tracks on the road, and watching that I am not endangering any small animals with my vehicle, while also remembering that small animals in the road can make fine photo subjects. My ears are alert to the sounds of the bush. Wow what is that ahead? I must not brake, as the harsh movement of the car will spook the animal. Just press the clutch and let the car roll gently to a halt. I have spotted the kudu in time, so I can plan where I want to be for the best photograph. I move the camera to my lap, and let the car creep forward gently and evenly in first gear, making sure that my movements are slow and deliberate, so as not to frighten the animal. I look out for clues of the animal's intentions as I move in to perfect position. Is he nervous? Will he spook easily?" I check my rear-view mirror and ensure that my parked car is not a danger to other vehicles. With my eye fixed on the animal ahead, watching for signs of disturbance, I lift my camera to my eye slowly, ad without a body movement otherwise. I focus, in order to get a better view of the animal and press my camera against the door-frame or window to steady it. I focus again, zoom, compose and focus. Then I wait for my shot, watching the animal's eyes for clues of intent, but also checking the surroundings for lighting, background or other animals.

6 6 When you start to think in this way when you are in the field, you are well on the way to taking good pictures, so encouraging this thought process is the prime purpose of this course. In conclusion, I am going to recap on a few points from section 1 of the course, so that you remember what is important: Be careful in the field do not take risks that endanger people or animals. Be patient and observe good wildlife photographs are not usually taken on the spur of the moment they come after studying your subject and anticipating its moves. Animals are very fast learn to capture the decisive moment. Learn from each section of the course do not "pick and choose", because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. By all means, concentrate on the sections that interest you most, but do not neglect the basics, no matter how boring.

7 7 Observance = Opportunity My wife, Trish, was sitting on a park bench with my daughter in the botanical gardens, when she was alerted by a panic call of a bird flying past. My daughter did not even notice and kept reading her book. Trish turned around slowly and saw nothing, so she looked for clues. Some birds in a nearby tree were staring at the bush and were clearly agitated. Trish looked more closely and saw this juvenile boomslang at close range - still and almost invisible. Trish got some fine shots of the snake, like this one. Boomslangs are feared by people, because they are highly venomous, but they are not aggressive. Not feeling threatened, by Trish's slow movements, the snake was happy to stay where it was and be photographed. At the end of the day, I asked my daughter what she had seen in the gardens: "Nothing", she said. My wife, of course, had a very different reply. During the time that the snake was there, literally dozens of nature-lovers walked by many intently studying the vegetation. Not one saw the young snake visibly poking its head out from the bush, yet every bird in the vicinity were on snakealert. The motto is to be observant while out in the field.