Fine tuning before shooting the great wildlife image

So, how do you improve your odds of a good exposure and a good composition with each shot?

I find it helps me to test my films as well as my lenses on the type of subject I photograph. Be it a little league ballpark, kids soccer field, zoo or small pond with tame ducks, I test film, lenses and camera before hitting important and unrepeatable subject matter.

If you are shooting wildlife one method can improve your odds of getting good images. At the least, it can help by letting you know, before going into the field, what won't work for your type of photography.

Test with stuffed animals.

Go to a taxidermist and get a duck. Get out your photo gear, especially your tripod. Set the duck down in an open field and frame it in the viewfinder, moving the tripod back & forth until the size is right(pretty much frame filling). Then step back and look at how far away from the duck you are with the lens you are using. This might be surprising if you have never done it before. Your 50mm lens might put you within two feet of the duck for a frame filling shot. What are the odds of you getting that close to a similar live duck in the wild?

Try this with every lens you own, carefully marking the camera location used with each lens. Frame the same shot with each lens and watch as you move from your smaller lenses to the telephotos, watch carefully. When you are finally far enough away from the duck that you feel you could actually duplicate the distance on a live animal in the wild, measure the distance. This tells you graphically just how close you really have to be to get an animal this size framed as you see it on film. It has the sobering effect of showing you how close you really do have to be, even with lenses in the 600mm range or larger. It is a surprise to many how close you actually have to get for the frame filling images.

Now, try a head & shoulder portrait and get a rude awakening. You have to get closer by a factor of about 2/3. Almost impossible for most of us. But, it tells you in no uncertain terms just how close you will have to get for the successful image. Remember the distance & it will help you in the field, especially when planning where to set up a blind. Try it again, setting up the duck for a photograph where it is smaller in the frame, more of an environmental shot. With lenses close to normal you soon find out even these shots place you so close you are likely to scare away most subjects. And, if you are setting up a football helmet to get the feel of trying to get a full frame face shot of that great quarterback you might discover you have to be closer than you will be allowed during either a game or practice session of your favorite team.

You have learned a good lesson in how close you absolutely, positively have to be for the kind of shot you want. The question now becomes, can you really get that close to your subject? In many cases the answer is no. If this is so, you have to decide whether the answer lies in getting a bigger lens, getting closer or working a bit farther away and cropping.

Remember, you are practicing so you can get the shot, first time. Now repeat the exercise with a roll of film in the camera. By using this with a stuffed animal similar to what you photograph you will learn just what your film will do with reflectance from feathers, etc. What colors will look like on the real thing, not a color chart. I have yet to see a color chart that has the iridescent reflections like those on the wings of a White Faced Ibis. Nor the depth of shadowed black feathers with texture. The real animal tests your film like no other method I have found.

Take the 'model' and photograph it in the type of light you will be shooting in. Try your duck with light reflecting off water, early in the morning. Just as you will photograph the real thing in the field. Try it mid morning after the light gets a bit harsh. Now shoot some in overcast light. Pre-dawn light. Try it in the rain. The idea is to see how your film behaves so when you are shooting for real you have already faced the lighting challenges and have real experience in how the film will reproduce the scene.

This exercise will be a big help in choosing your film, especially in going past the advertising hype. Heard "so & so film" is too contrasty? Try it and see. A duck and a muskrat will give you a good read on feathers & fur detail. Try it next to a milder film, such as Fuji Astia or Ektachrome EPN and see which gives you what you really want. You will find most films aren't perfect, but some fit your personal vision better than others. You will be doing it with the type of subject you want to photograph and will end up with a library of reference photos that teach you about your film. How does it react to over or underexposure? How does it take push processing? Probably most important, do you actually like how it renders colors? A lot of photographers I know don't really like the films they have but have never tried anything else. They rely on hearsay.

If you know, from personal experience, what the film does then you can make a rational choice for yourself. Choices based on information are much better than those made because "so & so famous photog" uses a film.

Now that you have the model(and kids or neighbors in a baseball uniform work fine as long as they are cooperative), you can take it to areas where you will be taking photographs for real. With the duck, put it in the brush near the shore and see how well it blends in. Set up and look through the lens and see just how your model looks with some rushes or cattails between you and the duck. This is a real world situation encountered by all of us who photograph wildlife. A bit of practice will tell you how your lenses blur the brush. Whether or not strong or soft light should work best for this type of shot. Whether you should spend some of your photo time just watching rather than wasting film.

By photographing your new model in the field and in varying light, coupled with what you learned about how close you really have to be for a good image, you will improve your knowledge of what will work for you. You won't need to bracket nearly as much and will have more confidence in your ability to get a good exposure on film in difficult situations. After all, the latest computers in the cameras are repositories of images which the computer compares your composition to in making its decision on how to expose the film. You can do it yourself and improve you photos.

You know what exposure will work. When to over or underexpose a bit for creative reasons. You will know this while at the same time helping to gain the discipline needed to shoot better photos. Images that fill the frame the way you want to, as well as having the certain knowledge as to just how far you can go in enlarging from subjects that appear smaller in the frame.

A few prints from your images as part of your testing will tell you the limits you can live with as far as grain and sharpness. This part of your testing can also point you to a camera shop to replace a lens that just won't cut it. Some lenses can't produce critically sharp images. Others can. With a simple set of testing you can find out if yours will do so with the film you like and the subject matter you shoot. Easy, fast and every time you work with you model you reinforce the knowledge you have gained.

I do have one friend who photographs wildlife extensively, but he uses stuffed animals rather than live ones. We disagree as to the honesty of the practice. I shoot some for testing and he shoots it for sale. He puts stuffed deer, elk, grouse, geese and a lot of others in natural settings & shoots them as if they were live. He has a whole garage full of animals in different poses. From big bass in a leaping posture to a large Mule Deer posing to Mallards leaping from a pond. He sets them out & shoots "perfect" photos. He even goes to the trouble of putting an air pump under the water to get the "explosion" off the water for the fish & birds. My feeling is that it isn't honest. His is that he is selling wildlife pictures & he does stay away from Natural History magazine and a few others that call for real, unmanipulated photos, so he does have scruples.

He has taken the technique of practice with the subject you really want to shoot & concentrated on stock images he can control and make nearly perfect. I like the uncertainty of reality. But I do try to improve the odds by testing with the very subject matter I will shoot in the field. It does make a difference. I still make some exposure errors but they are generally small ones. Often small enough that a scan & small density change in Photoshop will correct the image. Similar to pushing film in many instances. No change in the subject, just in exposure.

When you get into the field and have practiced & honed exposure, film choice, lens choice and composition beforehand, your images on film will more closely resemble the photos you see in your mind as you look through the camera. No more(or a whole lot fewer) photos where you have to hunt to find the deer. This is because you have deliberately trained yourself to be better. To know what is needed to get the animal or athlete large enough in the frame to make a good photo. You will also find that wildlife & sports photography are very closely aligned in their demands. The eyes of a moving fox and moving quarterback are both difficult targets. Work with one and it makes it easier to work with the other.

Practice doesn't make perfect, but it sure does make you better if you are willing to learn. Coming back from a morning of laying in a sleeping bag as a blind, with a 600 f/4 resting on my LowePro pack as tripod while photographing ducks right at water level and knowing all four rolls of film are at least exposed correctly or very close is satisfying. It helps to be able to concentrate on the subject without worry as you have the knowledge that allows you to do so. Practice helps.

For those who don't know where to get a model to practice on.

You might try decoys if you don't want a real animal, but you won't get the light reflecting the same as with a stuffed animal. Look in the telephone ads for a taxidermist, or ask at a sporting goods store. They should be able to help you. Friends will lend some to me because they know I won't destroy their animals. If I am putting one in rotten weather or marsh, I buy one or have the friends help place it. We get out together & they see how close I actually do have to be & have often called me later with good locations as a result.

Knowledge helps a lot & this method can help almost any budding wildlife photographer. Set up, shoot & analyze the results. Then set up again & correct the problems. It will cost a few rolls of film but can save you a lot of time later when in the field for real.

For Attached image:

White Faced Ibis

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Utah

This type of subject will drive you crazy. Dark feathers soak up light and the iridescent feathers call for excellent exposure control and the bird facing just the right way from the sun to be seen. Couple that with a big lens and depth of field measured in millimetres and you have a recipe for disaster. My having worked out some of the exposure problems on a stuffed duck earlier helped a lot. No time for bracketing at all with a moving bird that presented a real challenge for focus. Get the side of the bird in focus and the eye is soft. Get the eye sharp & the rest of the bird goes soft. Then, it was moving in and out of reflective water & darker marsh soil that would cut reflections completely. I know the light falling on the bird and how my film picks up the details in the darkest and lightest feathers, a real confidence booster when faced with a difficult subject. Knowing how the film will record the animal helps a lot and makes it easier to concentrate on framing the subject.