If you're like us and starting from scratch, we have to say from the outset that it will take some time to transition from a garden variety "point-and-click" camera operator to a photographer capable of combining composition with the appropriate exposure functionality. We're not quite there yet but making progress. Although we had little direct photography experience, we made a commitment to begin when we retired. If you are thinking of entering this genre, we would suggest that you embrace digital technology from the outset. As we have the good fortune of living next to a waterfowl preserve, we started by stalking birds. We soon became disciples of Arthur Morris (Birds As Art). Although his focus is exclusively avian, his photography books and excellent new material on digital camera techniques have proven invaluable in bypassing those myriad of mistakes that inevitably plague the beginner. Camera Body, Lens, Flash, Accessories, Upgrades, Micro Computer, Monitor, Printer As this is fundamentally a computer based hobby, you will initially face two predominantly technical decisions: what hardware and software to use and how to structure workflow. As with most decisions of this nature, your wallet and level of computer expertise will prevail. For our part, although we are somewhat computer literate, we wanted good basic starting equipment that would produce quality output without having to remortgage our house. We had an initial bias toward Web graphics with a longer term view to producing prints. No matter what end result you have in mind, initial equipment choice demands a basic minimum feature set. You will soon find there is quite a hardware disparity between photographing hummingbirds in the dark and grizzlies from six feet! Lens choice, for example, is a function of the lighting you typically expect to be working in, the size and movement of the wildlife you want to photograph and how close you can reasonably expect to get. You're camera body and post processing software must also possess specific features to make your life easier while in the field and behind the computer.
After an initial agonizing period that was purely based on basic photography ignorance, we finalized on a "getting started" kit. Our first pictures, presented in the "Early" Galleries, were taken with a borrowed Canon D30 digital camera, a Sigma 50-500mm, F/4.0-6.3 EX telephoto lens and an inexpensive Velbon CX586 tripod. After roughly a year in the field, with few exceptions, this equipment proved not a bad first choice. A review of this synopsis will give you a better idea of how to choose equipment and what subsequent upgrade steps we have taken to expand our field opportunities and improve the quality of our output.
RAW Mode, Colour Management, Configuring PhotoShop, Monitor Calibration, Printer Profiles Equally as important and probably more confusing is workflow or your approach to managing image files from flash card to computer enhancement. Although we began with simple JPEG files using the camera's "canned" settings, we soon switched to shooting RAW as we wanted to maximize the digital data captured for downstream processing. Our initial foray with the software provided by Canon and subsequent trials with PhotoShop Elements also revealed a miriad of file management inconveniences and processing limitations. Moreover, we soon discovered that our print output was not a faxsimile of what we saw on the screen. You'll have to devote a fair amount of time to this process, in particular monitor to printer colour management. Although to date we have employed kludge tactics to develop a workflow process using a number of disparate but effective software programs, Lightroom has now emerged with a leading edge holistic solution that certainly makes life a lot easier if you are starting from scratch. As a primer, we would suggest you review this synopsis to gain a better appreciation of some of the initial and future hurdles that must be overcome to begin to produce quality output in a productive manner. A great Lightroom primer is "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book - The Complete Guide For Photographers" by Martin Evening. Composition Basics, Exposure Fundamentals And Metering The objective of all serious photography is to gain control of the camera and, to whatever extent possible, the environment in which it is operated. You will find it as equally important to position for light and background as to manually manipulate camera functionality. When we got underway, exposure and composition plagued us for months. Creating the best exposure of a subject and backdrop means learning to read light, not only intensity but also how it casts shadows. This will take time and experience to grasp. In this synopsis, we have tried to summarize the fundamentals of exposure and provide hints on the basic rules governing good composition. Here we also emphasize the crucial role flash plays in some wildlife photography and how digital now makes it alot easier to implement. RAW Conversion, Lighting Adjustments, Dust Spotting, Cloning, Tone And Colour Adjustments, Crop, Size, Sharpen In this synopsis, we take you through the eight steps we use to enhance and store our output. You'll soon find that good exposures require little processing while others can be quite challenging if, for example, habitat needs to be removed to create a more pleasing outcome.
To date, we have used Breeze Systems - Digital Workflow Simplified to download and manage RAW files. This is absolutely the most cost effective software on the market. For Web graphics, the HTML tools are worth the price of admission alone! Although Adobe Bridge has undergone significant improvements, we still find their file management features cumbersome compared to the relative ease of capturing, sorting, moving and deleting images within the automated and user friendly structure that Breeze Systems provides. In all other repects, we have completely converted to PhotoShop CS3 for RAW conversion and enhancement.
You'll find that developing a good colour sense is definitely an acquired skill. A good starting book is the new "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book For Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby. We've also completed "Photoshop For Nature Photographers: A Workshop In A Book" by Ellen Anon and Tim Grey and found it to be equally compeling. A great new summary of this genre is "Digital Nature Photography - From Capture To Output" available through Joe and Mary Ann Macdonald. Each of these books is absolutely essential if you are looking for a quick study of more than just the PhotoShop basics.
Stalking Wildlife, Habitat Issues, Perch And Blind Photography Here we discuss the challenges of pure habitat photography, including positioning for light and background. We also explore the element of "control" that perch and blind photography can add to enhance your composition experience. Controlling your photography experience is important to advancing digital photography as an art form. Web Graphics And Prints You will soon be overcome with the desire to display your work once you begin to master some of the more critical camera and composition fundamentals. Our advice is to start slowly as there are technical issues, particularly with print production, that must be resolved when reproducing what you actually see on the screen. We started with Web Graphics as this is primarily a computer based hobby and a far less demanding medium than print production. As we also found glossy and matte finishes not to our liking, you may find our venture into watercolour papers something new and satisfying for preparing hard copy output. Our Output and Workflow synopses offer advice on overcoming the stumbling blocks we encountered in first displaying and reproducing our output. Forums, Reviews And Links Another way to get started is to see what the professionals or serious amateurs are doing. We've summarized some good wildlife photography sites for you in our Resources synopsis. A site we found to be particularly good was Lucid Images Wildlife Photography for its tremendous Web design and superb images. Deb Henson and Jan A. Allinder are ardent naturalists and great photographers who provide excellent advice for beginners in their Articles section. You may also consider joining NatureScapes as a registered Forum participant. Here you can showcase your photographs and garner instant feedback from the skilled moderators and participants. Central Oregon (Cabin Lake, Summer Lake), Northern California (Klamath Basin) Location choice depends, of course, on what you want to accomplish. Sites to simply experiment with light, movement or backdrop are relatively easy to find. Targeting a species is somewhat more problematic, especially after you have exhausted the locations you are familiar with locally. The issue here is really one of when and where the subject is relatively abundant and readily accessable. One solution is to find a photographer that has "organized" photo tours and offers time and material that will improve your skill level. We have found these to be invaluable in advancing our learning curve early on. Although this can be expensive depending on the subject you have chosen, cost effective courses are available in great locations if you want to accomplish a relatively simple mission such as experiencing "perch and blind" photography for the first time. We found, after roughly two years in the field, that a Greg Downing digital photography course on a ranch in Roma, Texas helped immensely to hone our "self-taught" rough edges. This combined field and class experience, coupled with Greg's abundant patience, helped immeasureably to solidify the basics from perch and composition theory to manual camera operation, workflow and enhancement techniques.
We will definitely pass recommendations along that we have tried and found to be fruitful. This synopsis is dedicated to ferreting out sites that are readily accessable to the public and relatively cost effective to visit, especially if you enjoy camping. It is very important that you have a very clear idea of what you want to accomplish prior to visiting a location and prepare accordingly. Here you will find recommendations on time of year, lens choice, clothing and other pertinent variables we found made our visit productive and enjoyable.
Wildlife Image Library We do not photograph captive subjects. As mentioned above, we focus primarily on natural habitat but find attracting birds to targeted perches a satisfying method of enhancing composition and controlling background blur when photographing from a blind. We have compiled an alphabetical list of our images that we feel is an accurate account of what you can expect to find in the Galleries on this site. We hope to make this searchable as time progresses. Online Resources | Great Locations | Species List | Wildlife Galleries | Contact Us |