Fun Ways to Practice Wildlife Photography at Home

Are you ready?

You’re all set for your first wildlife adventure, be it a Kenyan safari or Bornean jungle trek.
Plane tickets? Check. Travel insurance? Check. Camera and lenses? Check, check.
But have you taken some time to practice your wildlife photography? If a jaguar shyly crosses your path, you’ll want to know how to take the best shot to take before it quickly disappears into the bushes.

The good news is that you don’t have to learn how to shoot wildlife in the few seconds you might have with the animals you’re chasing. Practice makes perfect, and your home is the perfect place to practice. In order to sharpen your wildlife photography skills before getting on the plane, give these four exercises a try.

1. Practice Perspective

Pick a stuffed animal, object or even a friend to represent the animal you are looking to photograph in your travels. Place this stuffed animal or object an appropriate distance away to represent what you imagine your interaction with that animal will be. For example, you might place a stuffed lion fifteen feet away if you anticipate seeing it from a safari jeep. Or you might place a fake snake in a bush nearby. You get the idea.
Once you have placed your fake animal, take at least ten different photos of it from different angles. Also try using different lighting, filters or focal lengths. Move around your object because in the field, you most likely won’t get the chance to move the animal. You are going to have to move your camera instead. Once you have taken your photographs, pick your three favorites and memorize the camera settings you used as well as where you positioned yourself to get the photo.
Your Homework: Take 10 photos of a stuffed animal from different angles.

2. Think Macro

Macro is often synonymous with floral scenes. However, macro photography can be incredibly useful for capturing wildlife as well. Think about a colorful proboscis insect or a poisonous dart frog. The best ways to display these beautiful creatures is with a close-­up macro shot.
Macro photography is something you are definitely going to want to perfect before leaving home. To practice, try to find a common spider, ant or other insect. If no creatures is available, you can also practice with any small object. You will need your camera on its macro setting and paired to any macro lenses you might have.

 

To start, set your aperture to f2.8 or lower, for a shallow depth of field, and set your ISO to 100 or 200. A low ISO is necessary to keep digital noise out of this close-up shot. With these settings, it will probably be necessary to either use flash or a long shutter speed.

In order to avoid using unnatural light, you should consider a monopod or tripod to keep the camera steady. It might take some practice to learn how to get your tripod close to the ground. See if you can unscrew the center limb in order to widen the legs. An additional trick for a steady camera is using a remote shutter release. These can be cheaply purchased and will prevent any unnecessary shakes owing to your finger on the shutter button.
Once you have learned how to position your tripod and keep your camera steady while still maintaining a relatively short distance from your subject, it’s a good idea to practice using the focus points of your camera. Many cameras now allow you to choose which point you want to focus on. Doing this will prevent you from getting a photo with a crystal clear background and blurred subject. If your camera does not enable you to choose a focus point, be sure to practice using the manual focus as a camera’s automatic focus is at its worst during macro shoots.
This is also a good juncture at which to discover your white balance settings. In natural environments, the green of foliage often tricks the Auto White Balance setting so that it gives an overall color tint to the photo. Try using the Cloudy White Balance setting to see if your photos become any clearer.
After you are happy with your camera settings and your shots of that household bug look good on the LCD, don’t stop there. Photoshop is a powerful tool for macro. Using the crop feature and adjusting the color saturation, sharpness or contrast can add an extra dimension to an already stunning close­up shot.
Your Homework: Find a bug or small object around the house. Practice holding the camera steady and shooting with f2.8 and ISO100.

 

3. Try Telephoto

When shooting wildlife, your telephoto lens is bound to be the first thing you reach for in your camera bag. Getting close to animals is tough so knowing the right techniques to get a crisp picture using telephoto photography is vital on any wildlife trip.
Grab your camera with your telephoto lens and head to your window or into your yard. Hopefully you live somewhere with birds nearby. If you don’t, you might need to plant a stuffed animal or small object in a tree about 25 meters away.
First, you will want to fine tune the techniques mentioned above. It’s important that you know how to best use your tripod and a remote shutter release in order to get a sharp image of an object at a distance. You should also disable the image stabilisation or vibration reduction if it is a feature of your kit. When mounted on a tripod, small movements of the stabilisation mechanism can actually blur an image.
Once you have your equipment properly prepared, it’s time to choose the correct camera settings. Shutter speed and ISO are most important. If you are shooting a bird, a fast shutter is necessary. You will also want to use as low of an ISO as possible in order to ensure a sharp image.
When you are ready to shoot, the first technique to practice is tightly framing your subjects. The advantage of a telephoto lens is that you can get a close­up shot of a far­away animal, but you want that photo to show tons of detail. Make sure you are putting as much of the animal as possible in the frame.
Second, you should experiment with the shallow depth of field offered by most telephoto lenses. This is caused by bokeh, or the quality of out­of­focus areas in a photograph most often rendered by these lenses. You can use this concept to create an image with a blurred background and an ultra­sharp subject focusing on the isolation of the animal from its surroundings. However, bokeh will change from lens to lens so understanding how it works in yours will give you the chance to create a high quality image.
You Homework: Photograph birds in your yard in order to experiment with your lens’ bokeh and framing your subject.

 

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i
Lens: Canon EF­S 55­250mm f/4.0­5.6 IS II
ISO: 2500
Shutter: 1/320
Aperture: f/6.3
See the digital noise here? My ISO was too high!

4. Start Moving

On your animal adventure, it’s most likely that either you will be moving, the animal will be moving, or both. First, we can assume that most likely you will be in a vehicle of some sort whether it’s a safari jeep or boat. Secondly, animals are often moving from point A to point B when they are spotted. With all this movement, it’s important that you understand a variety of techniques for capturing a sharp and interesting photo while in motion.

In order to simulate this situation, we suggest grabbing a friend to drive you around. While you are driving, try to photograph signs, other cars or birds if you are close enough.
First thing’s first, crank up the shutter speed. The faster the better here. Everything else comes second, so you might consider using the shutter priority setting. Anything less than 1/500 seconds is likely to lead to blur and 1/1000 or higher is preferential if sufficient light is available.
This is also a good time to get familiar with the focus modes on your camera. If your subject is moving, it’s also likely to be moving in and out of your focused area. Luckily, your camera has a setting to remedy this. Al Servo focus mode will allow your camera to continuously focus on the moving object. Just remember to set your auto focus point before beginning to shoot so your camera knows what it’s looking at. Please note that some cameras may feature a hybrid focus mode in which the camera focuses on a static object and refocuses if it detects movement.
Finally, it’s important to have sufficient light for your moving captures. A high shutter speed requires good light, but don’t panic if you see something awesome moving in a low light situation. The technique known as panning is possible with little light. First, switch to Aperture Priority and set it to f/22 or higher. Next, make sure your ISO is at 100 and switch on burst mode to the maximum frames per minute. When your subject starts moving, hold down the shutter button and pan with the subject, moving at the same speed. This will hopefully result in a photo that slightly blurs behind your subject, emphasizing its movements.
Your Homework: The next time you are riding in a car, take your camera along. Try to shoot passing cars or landscapes at speed.

If you had success with these tips or would like to add some extra techniques for practicing wildlife photography at home, we’d love to hear from you in the comment section below. In the meantime, happy shooting!