Early on Sunday morning my daughter, Kara, competed in her first triathlon. My son and I went to watch the race and to cheer her on. Unfortunately, my wife was not able to attend because of work, so I decided I needed to capture the festivities with my camera. The slideshow was created so she could share the experience and boy did it work. This slideshow was created using Animoto. Sometimes, it is great to just sit back and be a dad.
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“Get close” and “Fill the frame” are two of the most commonly heard pieces of advise in wildlife photography. While helpful for the beginner, who often tries to include too much in each picture, this advise results many missed photographic opportunities.
Here are three reasons wildlife photographers should consider including the habitat in their images.
- As the image’s creator, I know exactly where and when an image was made. The viewer does not have that advantage. Including habitat helps to give the viewer a sense of place. Without visual cues, the viewer is left to wonder about the context of the scene. Providing the environment can help to provide some of that context.
- After a while, closeup images start to look the same. Expressions can vary, but a lion is a lion, and that sameness makes it difficult for your images to stand out from the crowd. Including the habitat helps to make images unique and therefore stand out from the competition.
- Habitat tells a story. Take the image above. Most of us have seen an elephant, in photographs, movies, or zoos. We know about their enormous size. We know about the adaptability of their trunk. We even know that they like to live in herds. What most people don’t know is that elephants are responsible for the transformation of ecosystems. African elephants are what is known as a keystone species. This means that they have a pronounced impact on the environment in which they live. How do they impact the environment? Simple, they knock down trees. Through deliberate action or accidental destruction, elephants bend, snap, and break trees. Over time, this destruction transforms forests into savannas. Without elephants, a large portion of the African savanna would no longer exist. By including the interaction between an elephant and a tree (guess who usually wins), the photograph takes on a story telling quality that a closeup shot of the elephant can’t capture.
Animalscapes (habitat shots that include wildlife) are difficult to create. There is so much more to include that the visual focus of the image can be compromised. Despite the challenges, animalscapes offer a unique opportunity to document the stories about how wildlife interacts with its environment.
The image was taken using a Canon 1D mark 4, 500 mm IS lens, at 400 ISO. The image was taken from a vehicle using a beanbag for support.
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I recently learned that one of my images (shown above) placed in the 2010 NANPA Showcase competition. It as a tier 3 winner, meaning it was one of the top 250 images entered in the competition. 3,046 images were entered this year and I am happy to have one of my images place.
I also found out that my spotted hyena cub picture will be appearing in an upcoming issue of National Wildlife as part of their promotion for their caption contest.
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This image was captured using a Canon 1D mark 2, 500mm IS lens, at 200 ISO. The image was taken from a vehicle with a beanbag used for support. This vervet monkey was startles when we approached and started to run along the side of the road next to our vehicle. To cover more ground, he started jumping over the long grass, giving me the perfect opportunity to photograph a flying monkey. The panoramic crop was completed in Photoshop.
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Sometimes we miss opportunities. Two years ago in the Serengeti, I photographed this family of cheetah after an unsuccessful zebra hunt. The four cubs didn’t understand that they had no hope of taking down a zebra. So they spent some time chasing the herd as their mother looked on in what must have been exasperation. When it became obvious that the zebra had no plans to cooperate, the cubs gathered together to catch their breath. The diagonal line of the hill created a nice composition and I captured a few frames before all hell broke loose. It turns out that while everyone in our vehicle was watching the cubs, mom decided to show them how it was done. Less then 100 yards directly in front of our car, she took down a reedbuck when it walked into the open. Well, at least I got a picture of the cubs.
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How did you spend this past weekend? I spent most of my time going through my photographic files. Saturday and Sunday found me hunched over the computer, looking over thousands of images, identifying the keepers (fun), reliving the memories (more fun), and discarding the rest (sucks). This is worth noting because my exploration revealed some surprises, not the least of which were images I forgotten about. Like most photographers, I have favorite images. A lion roaring, zebra fighting, a lilac breasted roller looking particularly beautiful. These are the images I return to again and again. The crown jewels of my collection. the problem is that I become so attached to these favorites, that I rarely go through the other images. If someone wants to see my pictures, I naturally show them my best. It is only for specific requests that I might dive into the archives and see what can be found. Yet, hidden within the archive hid some impressive shots that had totally slipped my mind. These images often fall outside of the traditional approach, but they have impact and scream for attention when revealed to the light of day. So, the lesson is to take the time and review your old work. In fact, you might want to check out your own files. Who knows what you will find.
The image was captured using a Canon 1D mark 2, 500mm IS lens (with a 2x teleconverter attached), at 400 ISO. The image was shot from a vehicle and a beanbag was used for support. The Lappet-faced Vulture is Africa’s largest vulture, with a wingspan of up to 10 feet. This particular bird had just taken off from a kill when the picture was taken. I like the closeup perspective and the diagonal lines created by the wings. The limited depth of field also helps to draw attention to the vulture’s face while the slight blur provide a sense of action.
Autofocus is one of the great convenience of modern photography. 18 years ago when I picked up my first camera, autofocus was making a big splash. It had been around for a while, but it wasn’t until that time that it really started to work. Today, we take it for granted. The autofocus systems on today’s cameras are amazing and help us to capture images that would be difficult, if not impossible, to capture without it. Despite the ready acceptance of the technology, most photographers don’t even realize that their cameras have different options when it comes to autofocus. On my canon cameras, I find settings for one shot, AI servo, and AI focus (other manufacturers offer similar settings though the names might be different). What do these settings mean and how do they impact our photography?
Before we get started, we need to understand a term: point of focus. When you tell you camera to focus, what you are really telling it is focus on a single point within the image. This point is the point of focus and it impacts how autofocus works.
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One Shot Autofocus:
One shot autofocus is what most people think of when they use autofocus. The way one shot works is that once focus is achieved (pressing the shutter button part way), it remains locked on a single point of focus until the shutter button is released. Moving the camera around does not change the original point of focus. This is convenient when you want to recompose the scene after focusing. Place the subject int he middle of the frame, focus, then recompose to take advantage of the rule of thirds.
The image above, for example, shows a mother baboon holding her baby as she eats the fruit from a sausage tree. While there certainly was movement, the baboons were not going anywhere and the baby was fairly still (mother was the only one eating). This was a perfect situation for one shot. To get the shot, I focussed on the baby’s face, recomposed the image so that the baby was in the lower center of the frame, and waited for the pair to assume a nice pose.
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AI Servo Autofocus:
In the second image (above) one shot would not have worked. The mother was on the move with her baby and locking down a single point of focus would have been problematic because the female’s location was constantly changing. Attempting to use one shot would result in blurry pictures and a lot of frustration. The solution is to switch the setting to AI servo. Unlike one shot, AI servo does not lock once a point of focus has been set. Instead, AI servo tracks the subject as it moves around the frame. As long as you keep the subject in the frame, AI servo will try to keep it in focus. While not perfect, AI servo does work surprisingly well in situations where the subject is mobile, such as flying birds, running cheetahs, or monkeys on the move. The downside of AI servo is that moving camera can cause the point of focus to shift, so it can be difficult to reposition the subject within the image.
AI Focus Autofocus:
In recent years, Canon’s camera’s have offered a third autofocus option: AI focus. In theory, AI focus is the best of both worlds. Using advanced technology, the camera decides if the subject is moving or stationary. Once that decision is made, the camera shifts between one shot and AI servo. When it works, AI focus is a fantastic tool. Unfortunately, I find it unpredictable in the real world, so I tend to stick with either one shot or AI servo for my autofocus needs.
Hopefully this provides you with a better understanding of how the different autofocus settings work and which setting will give you the best results in a given situation. When in doubt, keep it simple: stationary subject = one shot, moving subject = AI servo. Now get out there and give them a try.
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If you are a parent, I will warn you, never play hide and seek with your kids. No matter how hard you look, you never find them. It is almost like they can be in multiple places at the same time. I never knew this game could be so hard.
I came up with the idea for this shot a few weeks ago and my kids agreed to help me carry it out over the weekend. The image is a digital composite, made up of four different images. In the first three images, Kara and Tristan each hid in a spot where the camera could see them. They then changed hiding spots for each image. For the final image, I stood in the middle of the room and looked confused (little acting needed). Tristan (age 3) pressed the cable release for me, so I guess he owns part of the copyright for this image. The four images were then brought into Photoshop where they were stacked on top of each other. Layer masks were then used to reveal portions of each layer so that I was surrounded by 6 kids.
The images were created using a Canon 1Ds mark 3, 17-35mm lens, at 1000 ISO. The camera was mounted on a tripod so that aligning the images in Photoshop would be easy and the shutter was triggered with a cable release (again, to keep the camera from moving). Kara has decided that she wants to take a copy of the image to school for show-and-tell. I wonder what here teacher will say when she can provide evidence that she was in three places at the same time……
Remember, in addition to recording your inner vision, photography should be fun. So let your creative juices flow and see what you can come up with.
As photographers, one of our basic creative options is the aperture setting. By controlling the aperture, we not only control the amount of light, but also the amount of the image that will be in focus (called the depth of field). Smaller apertures (f/16 or f/22) render everything in focus. This is great for scenic landscapes, but makes it difficult to focus the viewer’s attention on a single part of the frame. By selecting a larger aperture (f/2.8 or f/4), much of the scene is rendered out of focus, forcing the viewer to focus their attention on the part that is in focus. Selective focus is a common technique photographers use to control the viewer’s experience. This past week, my photography students have been working to use shallow depth of field to emphasize the subject. Lets see how you do. As usually, I have included a selection of images that demonstrate the technique.
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Gail Mooney and her daughter Erin Kelly recently embarked on a 99-day, around the world trip as they filmed the Opening Our Eyes movie project. The project focuses on 7 individuals on 7 continents who are working to make their part of the world a better place. Perhaps most exciting for photographers is the fact that the documentary was filmed using Canon DSLR cameras (Canon 5D). To learn more about the project and how it was filmed, visit the Opening Our Eyes blog. Gail and Erin recently returned home, having completed the production side of their documentary and editing is now underway. I have been following the progress of their project with interest and look forward to seeing the film when it is completed. To see a 10 minute teaser for the upcoming film, click on the link below.
Opening Our Eyes – The Trailer from Gail Mooney on Vimeo.