Welcome to the third in a 12 part series about how to improve your nature photography.

Step #3 – Use a tripod.

I have heard all the reasons photographers give for not using a tripod.  It’s heavy.  It’s expensive.  I already have enough gear.  It doesn’t offer any benefits, so why bother?  No one says you have to use a tripod.  There aren’t any tripod police running around handing out tickets.  But I will let you in on a little secret.  The single fastest way to improve your photography is to use a tripod.

Tripods offer two distinct advantages over hand holding the camera.

Advantage #1 – Using a tripod results in sharper pictures.  I don’t care how stead your hands are, there are some shutter speeds you just can’t use if you are handholding your camera.  Years ago the advice was that you can successfully take sharp images down to a shutter speed equal to 1/the length of your lens.  If you were using a 50mm lens, you could hand hold down to 1/50 of a second.  A 200mm lens could only be hand held down to 1/200 of a second.  While image stabilizing (IS) technology has helped to push the barrier of what is hand holdable, there are limits.  Hand holding a camera for multi-second exposures will give you a blurry mess.  Not a problem if that is what you are going for, but my guess is that you will be disappointed with your results.

Nature photographers in particular face challenges that make using a tripod beneficial.  For wildlife, we use long telephoto lenses which enhance the slightest mistake.  The smallest movement with a 500m lens will exaggerate the movement 10x.  For landscapes, we strive for large depth of field, which requires tiny apertures.  Tiny apertures mean slow shutter speeds.  Hand holding under either of these conditions almost ensures soft images.  The last thing I want is to return home only to find that my award winning lion image is blurry.  Using a tripod will result in sharper images.

Advantage #2 – Using a tripod slows you down.  I admit it, tripods are a pain in the neck (actually the shoulders, but lets not get picky).  They are heavy and there will be times when you miss a shot because the tripod isn’t set up.  Still, I argue that the extra time it takes to set up a tripod is a good thing.  Knowing that taking a picture will require going through the process of setting up the tripod, we become much more selective in which pictures are worth the effort.  Using a tripod slows you down and makes you think.

This works for fast moving subjects too.  By setting the tripod up ahead of time (while you are still far away or before the action starts) you can be ready to capture images at a moments notice.  Also, when it is necessary to wait for an extended period to capture your image (a common situation in wildlife photography), a tripod supports the camera so that you don’t have to.  This makes the waiting easier and less physically demanding.

So stop thinking about the limitations and get a tripod.  It might be the single best step you could take to improve your photography.

The image above is John BlumenKamp when he was just getting started in nature photography (he has progressed a long way since then).  Looking at the image, it might be difficult to guess that it was taken at 1/3 of a second with a 100mm lens.  John and the rocks are both sharp, yet the water and John’s hand are blurred (he moved as I pressed the shutter).  By using a tripod I was able to remove camera shake from the equation and get the picture I wanted.  The image was captured using a Canon 1Ds, 70-200mm lens (set to 100mm), at 50 ISO.  The camera and lens were mounted on a Gitzo tripod.

Welcome to the second in a 12 part series about how to improve your nature photography.

Step #2 – It is about light.

Take a look at the picture below.  This is a shot of Uluru (more commonly called Ayers rock), the world famous red rock of central Australia.  The rock is famous for its beauty and is a sacred site to the local aborigines.  Yet you would never know it by looking at this picture.  The light is flat and dull, resulting in a picture that is equally dull to look at.

Now, take a look at the same picture, with different light.  This shot was captured moments after the sunrise broke the horizon.  For that brief moment in time, the rock literally glowed (no, the image was not enhanced in Photoshop).  The difference between the two images is striking.  The first image is hardly worth looking at while the second shows a natural spectacle that I travelled over 10,000 miles to witness.  Yet the only difference between the two images is the light.

Photography is about light.  Its angle, color, and intensity all impact the final image.  As we become more involved in photography, we begin to watch the light and see how it changes the subject.  Understanding how light is recorded by the camera and how it changes the appearance of the subject is one of the keys to improving your images.  In the studio, photographers have the ability to manipulate light in many different ways.  They can add it or remove it.  As nature photographers, we are not so fortunate.  We are at nature’s mercy as to what type of light we are going to get.  Sure, we try to stack the deck in our favor by getting up before the dawn and being prepared to take advantage of the golden light of sunrise, but it doesn’t always work out the way we wish.  I remember one getting up one morning hoping for a sunrise and getting a snowstorm instead.  The lack of control is one of nature photography’s greatest challenges.  It is also one of its most interesting elements.  Each time I grab my camera, I don’t know what opportunity I am going to get.  It takes patience and persistence to capture the right light.  You have to keep going back to the same locations again and again in the hope that something magical will happen.

Welcome to the first in a 12 part series about how to improve your nature photography.

Step #1 – Know your equipment.

Modern cameras are amazing.  They take the guess work out of photography.  It is possible to put everything into auto mode and shoot away.  Truth be told, that will even work 90% of the time.  But why would you want to?  If you want to point and shoot, don’t buy a DSLR.  Buy a point and shoot camera and save thousands of dollars.  DSLRs provide the photographer with numerous options.  That is why they cost so much.  Failing to use those functions is similar to purchasing a race car and using it to carpool kids to dance class.  It works, but why do it?

Light meters, autofocus, and other technological innovations have come a long way, but they are not perfect.  In their attempt to automate the photographic process, manufacturers have made assumptions about your photographs.  They assume you want an average depth of field.  They assume your subjects are either still or moving in a predictable manner.  They assume the world you are viewing is not too bright or too dark.  Again, this works in most situations.

The problem is the other 10%.  Those times when situations are most dramatic and the resulting images are the most unique (can something be most unique?  Sorry, side thought).  These are the times when your camera gets it wrong.  Unfortunately, these are also the situations that create the strongest images.

As photographers, our goal is to capture images that share a message in an effective manner.  To accomplish this, it is essential that we understand what our equipment does.  If you don’t know what choices the automatic settings are making for you, or when to override those choices, your images will look like everyone else’s.  They wont stand out and be noticed.  The world is full of good images.  If you want to be noticed, your images have to be better then good.  If you want your images to stand out, you have to be able to answer some questions.

• What are my camera settings and why should I care?
• What is exposure?
• When is aperture priority better then manual?
• How do aperture and shutter speed change the image?
• Why does the camera have dozens of different custom functions and which should I use?

All of these are important questions and your ability to answer them will impact the options available to you in the field.

The idea of sitting down and actually reading the camera manual sends chills up most people’s spines.  Yet it is one of the best things you can do as a photographer.  Find out what the different controls do.  Decide how those controls impact your photography.  Then decide which of those controls you will actually want to use for different aspects of your photography.  Once you understand what you camera is capable of doing, you can make your choice: let the camera make the decisions for you or override the camera and make your own choices.  Both options have a place, but only by understanding your equipment is it possible to consistently get the images you want.

The image above documents one of those magical moments in nature photography.  Each year, thousands of snow geese winter at Bosque del apache national wildlife refuge in New Mexico.  As a result it is a mecca for bird photographers.  Each morning photographers brave the frigid temperatures in the hope of experiencing a blast off in which thousands of geese take to the air as a single flock.  The sound of a blast off is like thunder.  This particular image was made possible because I knew how my camera’s light meter would interpret having the sun directly behind the birds.  The image was created using a Canon 1Ds, 600mm lens with a 1.4 teleconverter, at 200 ISO.  The camera and lens were mounted on a Gitzo tripod and a Wimberly tripod head.