- Get up early
- Mornings are best for photography. First light is pleasantly orange,
lakes are mirror smooth, animals are active, and you don't have
to deal with crowds of people. That early alarm is a big shock, but
resist the urge to hit the snooze button. The first few minutes after
sunrise are especially crucial for scenic photos and you don't want to miss that.
You will spend a lot of time driving around in pre-dawn darkness,
but the traffic will be light.
Once you arrive, you get to enjoy the quiet morning solitude as
well as get great pictures. If there is one thing to dramatically
improve your photos, this is it.
- Do it often
- Nature is like a lottery, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. You
have a better chance of winning if you play more often. You never know when
that big bull elk will walk out of the forest or a few clouds will create
a stunning sunrise, so you need to be there when it happens.
However, remember it is a fine line between persistence and futility.
- Be Ready
- Keep your camera readily accessible. Some photo opportunities are fleeting,
and if you can grab your camera and shoot out your car window, you will get
shots that others will miss. Many photographers keep their equipment in the
back of their trucks, completely unreachable, and miss those impromptu shots.
- Know your subject
- You need to know when and where to expect to find subjects. When you
spend a lot of time waiting and watching for the perfect pose, you will
learn about animal behavior. Seasons greatly affect animal behavior.
Mating season is a good time to photograph large animals, since they
are in prime condition, preoccupied, and active.
- Understand the light
- Morning and evening light is also better because of its shallow angle
compared to mid-day light which basically shines straight down.
Remember, you are taking pictures of the sides of the subjects,
not the top, so you need the light to illuminate the sides.
You can photograph subjects like birds for about the first three
hours of a day. After that the sun is too high, the bird's
belly is in shadow, and the eyeball highlight is gone.
Time to go home for a nap.
Many things look good when photographed with bright sun and blue sky. A thin overcast can help by reducing the harsh contrast slightly, but the sky will appear white. Other subjects look better in cloudy overcast light. Flowers benefit greatly from the non-directional and shadow-free light of a cloudy day. Waterfalls are not so blitzed with overcast light, plus a relatively long exposure can create a wonderful silky effect.
- Focus on the eyeball
- With a long lens, you don't have a lot of depth of field, so use it wisely.
An animal's eye is the most important part and it should be razor sharp.
A highlight also improves the photo immensely.
Some animals have jet black eyes which look like holes in
their heads without that highlight.
- Don't harass your subject
- In the quest for that frame-filling close-up, we all try to get close to the subjects.
The tolerance distance for each animal is different,
and you can't predict exactly what that will be.
Sometimes the animal may accept or completely ignore you.
Others will walk or run away, which only leaves you with
a fleeting butt shot. A bird that feels threatened won't come to its
nest, so you won't get any shots. If you have an uncooperative
subject, it is pointless to harass it, so please don't.
Remember, the welfare of the animal is paramount.
- Learn from your successes and failures
- When you get some bad photos, ask yourself "why is this photo bad?" and
determine what you can do to recognize that situation and avoid repeating
that mistake. Similarly, when you get a great photo, ask yourself what
makes it so good and try to do that again. Be honest with yourself in your
evaluation of your photos. Just because you went to great pains to get a
photo doesn't automatically make it spectacular.
- Show only your best work
- Take lots of pictures and sort them mercilessly. If any are out of focus or blurred, throw those out immediately. If you get a dozen dynamite shots, nobody else needs to know how many hundreds of duds you threw away.
Wildflower photos
For more hints, see Advice for Wildflower Photography.
Equipment
I finally went digital in 2010, when Canon tempted me with their new 7D. I must say, it's awesome. Technological advances like image stabilization and autofocus make it much easier. The ability to adjust subtle lighting and color tint is great. I have gotten photos with the digital camera that would have been impossible with film. However it is easy to become a mindless zombie and let the camera do it all. If you're not paying attention, the camera will happily focus on the bird's butt instead of its head.
Long lenses are necessary for wildlife. They are often envied but are not the ultimate panacea. Besides their expense, they are heavy, prone to vibration, and attract unwanted attention from curious tourists. They also do not give you as much magnification as most people expect. My rule of thumb is: if you can't see it with the naked eye, you can't take a decent picture of it with a 600mm lens. To see the effect of different length lenses, see my lens focal length chart.
(2012 update: I discovered an adapter that lets me use the old 800mm FD lens on my 7D. See how it performs here.)
I used a Mamiya 7 medium format rangefinder camera for the scenic photos in my RMNP book. It is a step backwards from 35mm in terms of size, cost, versatility, and ease of use, but those giant 6x7cm transparencies definitely make it worth the extra trouble! The quirks of a rangefinder take some mental adjustments, not the least of which is the propensity to photograph the inside of the lens cap. Using a polarizer or split neutral density filter on a rangefinder is less convenient than on an SLR, but definitely possible. No you can't do macro photography or super telephoto wildlife photos, but it is great for general landscapes like waterfalls and big mountains glowing orange at sunrise. I chose this system because it was reasonably light and portable for those long hikes. It worked well at the time.
Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this question. I regularly go to Rocky Mountain National Park because it is close to home. National parks are good for photographing wildlife because the animals are there and they are relatively tolerant because they haven't been hunted. You don't have to deal with getting permission from private property owners, or worry about power lines and fences in the background. It is faster and easier to cruise the roads early in the mornings instead of hiking somewhere, because you can cover a lot more area. Some days you won't find anything. You need patience and determination to keep looking.
Photography is not really a social pastime. Locating the animals is as much a part of it as actually photographing them. After I have spent several days scouting for bird nest holes, I'm not anxious to tell other photographers. At a minimum, I will have to share "my" subjects, and the other photographer may not have the same level of respect for the subject. Some photographers will pump you for information and offer none in return, which seems unsociable and unfriendly. A few photographers are major jerks with huge egos, but you soon learn to avoid them. Wildlife photography is competitive, but we can at least be civilized.
Equally important as where to find wildlife, is when. The changing seasons greatly affects the animals' behavior and your photo opportunities. Great horned owls nest in February and have fuzzy chicks by May. Migrating birds come through the area in April and May. Nesting songbirds can be photographed in late June. Mountain goats need to be photographed early in the summer, before they start losing their hair and look like rotting carpets. Different wildflowers bloom at different times throughout the summer. The leaves on the aspen trees turn to gold during September, which is influenced by altitude and latitude. Elk start their mating activities in late September, followed by mule deer, then bighorn sheep at Thanksgiving.