Wildlife Photography

[writer-123]

Looking at your great wildlife photography in the Gallery, I need some help to do some wildlife photography of my own. Im just starting out with photography and am intrested in widlife. I want to start taking pictures of birds and have a 350D 75-300mm. Whats the best setting to use ie auto, P AV or other ? basic I know but we all got to start somewhere.

thanks for the Midlands

[eeyore]

i'd tend to suggest sticking to auto until you have got your composition etc down then when you want to take more creative control use either aperture priority (AV) - where you select the aperture and the camera selects a speed to match , or shutter priority (TV) where you select the speed and the camera the aperture. Ocassionally you may wish to use Manual (M) where you select both but this can be slow to set up if you are shooting action.

by the way i have an advice sheet for beginer wildlife photographers, which covers all this in more detail, that i'd be happy to send you if you pm me with your email address

[zan]

Probably the easiest way to start is to put your camera on Av and the widest aperture you have (probably F4 or F5.6 on the 75-300mm). That way, the camera will automatically keep the shutter speed as high as possible, which is generally what you want to begin with (animals are quick wee things when you point a camera at them!).

Try and keep your shutter speed as high as you can (over 1/200s) is good as a minimum for fast things, which will reduce blur and shaking. If your shutter speed won't go that high (e.g. in low light), you'll need to increase the ISO (starts at 100 on you camera I think, and goes up to 1600?). This will make your photos a wee bit more grainy ('noisy'), but will increase the shutter speed. You should be ok up to about ISO 400, then you'll need to decide for yourself whether the extra noise is worth it.

Hope this is some help. This is what I did when I first started out and it was a good place to learn from. If you're not sure what aperture \ shutter speed \ ISO are though, I'd recommend getting a good book (like brian petersen's Understanding Exposure) or reading matt's beginners guide.

Good luck!
Zan

[Chris Hawes]

I would agree, set to AV (aperture priority) and select the widest aperture (smallest f-number) to begin with to ensure the fastest shutter speed.

Andy Rouse's book - Digital SLR Masterclass - is very good and explains things in a very 'non-techy', easy-to-understand manner. I believe he may have revised the book since I bought it but you should be able to find it by a quick websearch.

Good luck.

[ron1863]

Hi and welcome to WAB. Eeyor, zan and Chris have given you good advice and I would only add that you go out and experiment with the camera settings. I usually leave mine set to aperture priority and set the ISO according to the available light to give me a fairly high shutter speed, especially for bird photography.

Good Luck
Ron

[GME]

Hi
That is the same camera/ lens combination I have at the moment too. My advice is to stick at it because you will come to learn what it is capable of and where its weaknesses lie. It is possible to get some nice pictures with it but to get really good shots you will need to be pretty close to the birds. My first attempts left something to be desired (even though I thought they weren't too bad at the time). Now I know the limitations I can counter them. The lens is not the sharpest but you will get some decent shots if you get near (best done through putting some food down and hiding out for them!)

With the settings, I choose the same methods as described above. Set the camera on AV and the widest lens setting and let the camera select the fastest shutter speed possible. If it is too slow, I'll up the ISO. At first I used to use 'Sports' mode and I find this works better than the general 'Auto' setting.

I have just bought a tripod too and this is something I'd also recommend as it will help at the long end when zooming to prevent some blurring (though not subject movement).

I took this Robin pic recently with the 350D and 75 - 300 III USM handheld in some overcast conditions. Light will help your pics too, so fingers crossed the weather will hold out! Just click on it to see it properly.



It's not the best in the Gallery but we can keep dreaming of those nice 'L' series lenses, eh?

Whatever, good luck and share your results. If you post them and ask for feedback you'll get loads of advice and improve quicker

If you need any futher help with the setup or advice, I don't profess to be an expert, but will gladly tell you how I try to rectify all my mistakes as I'm learning Just PM me if you want

Gareth

[writer-123]

many, many thanks for quick reponce and your time - good advice

[big bill]

A lot of good advice given above another point to ensure shake free results is to invest in a tripod or monopod for when exposures may start to get longer than the recommended settings for the lens being handheld optimum for the 300mm lens 1/300sec any slower then you may incur camera shake

[writer-123]

thanks for your comments & surport - will get snapping & feedback