Safari & Zoo Photography

Transcription

1 4 Week Online Photography Course Safari & Zoo Photography Perfecting Your Technique Before Your Trip Lesson 1 Course Notes By David Tipling

2 PAGE 2 INTRODUCTION Welcome to this first lesson from backyard to big game photography. In this course we look primarily at big game and safari photography. But that s not to say it s only for those who are planning a trip to Africa or India. This course will be great for anyone planning a holiday and who hopes to photograph some of the local wildlife. As For your weekly assignments, am I expecting you to take off each week to to warmer climbs! Instead, all the photography projects have been designed to be completed in your local area, but still allow you to put into practice, the camera skills required for the bush. In this lesson, I m going to give you ideas and advice on how to choose a safari with your primary purpose as photography, how to go about choosing a tour from a tour operator, plus ideas on going it alone. And finally we will look at what you will need to take with you. David Tipling

3 PAGE 3 Course Curriculm Week 1 : Logistics and Choosing a Safari Destination This first lesson will introduce you to some of the logistics of safari photography. How do you choose destinations and safari companies. Should you go it alone or join a group. If joining a tour, how do you choose which tour will be right for you and provide the photographic opportunities you desire. This lesson helps answer those questions and advises on keeping within weight restrictions for hand baggage on flights and we discuss in length the different equipment options available. Week 3: Composition, Perspective & Lighting This lesson takes a longer look at perspective briefly covered in lesson 2. We also explore composition, different techniques for providing impact to your images relevant to being on safari. Mastering lighting and the use of shutter speed and aperture are key ingredients to being a creative photographer. On safari having an understanding of these skills can catapult your images from being average safari shots to images fit to hang on the wall! So we will look at how direction of light and other parameters make such a difference to the overall quality of an image. Week 2; Camera Craft This lesson looks at camera basics. The settings you need to fix in your cameras menu such as white balance. We will discuss too the pros and cons of shooting in RAW as opposed to JPEGs. We will then move on to looking how we achieve good exposures, how aperture settings will affect depth of field and hence the mood of the picture and how different length lenses alter perspective. In short this is an exploration of your creative control over an image. Week 4: From People to Processing This final lesson looks at a multitude of safari related topics ranging from photographing tribal people to cataloguing your pictures. we also look at some basic techniques for enhancing your images in the computer from getting rid of dust spots to improving exposure and sharpening. You may before you go on safari want to get plenty of practice in on photographing large animals so plenty of tips are given too on in where to go

4 PAGE 4 Safari Photography: Where to go, How to choose, What to take Few holidays are more expensive than going on safari. That is particularly true of destinations such as the Masai Mara in Kenya. So it s clearly important to do some research and ensure you are going to the right place at the right time of year for the wildlife you wish to photograph. There is no point in going in December to the Mara if you want to photograph spectacular river crossings by Zebra and Wildebeest as this all happens from late June through to October. Equally if you want to photograph Tigers you need to be aware of the intense heat in central India in April and May but the increased chances of sightings due to them needing to hang out near water. So a bit of research will pay off handsomely. A good start can be gained by trawling the internet, check to see when most tours visit a locality you are interested in, this is likely to be the best time for that location. Most tour sites will have detailed itineraries that give a good insight in to what you might expect, though be warned some don t always reflect reality. Read photographers blogs to check on their experiences and take a look at stock websites like Alamy.com where you can search for say lion or tiger and look at the locations these images have been shot in. Often you find one location comes up time after time suggesting this is likely to be the best bet if a particular target is on your radar. Big game roam across a number of continents but for the purposes of this course I am going to concentrate on Africa and to a lesser extent India. For the ultimate big game photo experience it is hard to beat either East or South Africa. These locations have a great infrastructure geared for safaris with very comfortable lodges serving great food and usually located in the heart of the action. A visit at any time of year to Africa will offer fabulous opportunities though the rainy season is best avoided as roads can become impassable and animals more difficult to locate. You could be forgiven for thinking that going on safari is just like one of those great wildlife documentaries on tv where there is something spectacular to see almost every minute of the day. Well the truth is that many locations are very different and typical experiences might range from seeing the tail end of a leopard, distant line of Elephants shimmering in a heat haze or encountering a Black Rhino just as the light has seeped away are typical frustrating experiences.

5 PAGE 5 Many destinations require perseverance, planning and a little luck for great shots. However there are locations that on some days do resemble a TV documentary, most notably in East Africa and particularly Kenya which is hard to beat as a great all round destination. The comfortable well appointed lodges keep travel time to photographic subjects minimised and most of the parks teem with big game. Most famous of these is the Masai Mara which can either be reached by road or light aircraft. The big five, Rhino, Elephant, Leopard, Lion and Buffalo can all be photographed well here along with Cheetah, more secretive cats such as the Serval, Hippos, Hyenas and a good variety of grazing animals.

6 PAGE 6 Many destinations require perseverance, planning and a little luck for great shots. However there are locations that on some days do resemble a TV documentary, most notably in East Africa and particularly Kenya which is hard to beat as a great all round destination. The comfortable well appointed lodges keep travel time to photographic subjects minimised and most of the parks teem with big game. Most famous of these is the Masai Mara which can either be reached by road or light aircraft. The big five, Rhino, Elephant, Leopard, Lion and Buffalo can all be photographed well here along with Cheetah, more secretive cats such as the Serval, Hippos, Hyenas and a good variety of grazing animals. The Mara as it is referred to also hosts one of earths greatest wildlife spectaculars and one that photographers flock to, the crossing of the Mara River by hundreds of thousands of Wildebeest and Zebra. These animals give birth deep inside Tanzania s Serengeti in February then move towards the Masai Mara reaching the area once the rains have provided a flush of grass. To reach this grazing they have to cross the river where lying in wait are some of Africa s largest crocodiles. The crossings early in the season, normally from late June into July can offer plenty of croc action. But for the really spectacular crossings when thousands of animals may use a crossing point in a single day then August and September are the best months to visit. Both Kenya and Tanzania have many other great photographic locations. As just mentioned the Serengeti and Tanzania s Ngorongoro Crater are both wonderful. Kenya s Samburu National Park in the north of the country offers animals such as the Reticulated Giraffe, the amazingly stripy Grevy s Zebra and is a great place for Leopard photography. Still in Kenya in the Rift Valley there is Lake Nakuru with its spectacular concentration of flamingo s but the big game stars here are Rhino, both White and Black Rhino can be photographed the former very easily as they are far more placid than there black cousins and graze around the lake shore. This is another great location for Leopard too. Although there are a myriad of parks and reserves to explore in East Africa as already mentioned game can be scarce in many and hard work to photograph, yet many of these locations have their own specialities. In Kenya for example Amboseli is famed for its elephants, some here have impressive tusks

7 PAGE 7 and can be photographed to the backdrop of Kilimanjaro s snow capped dome. At Shimba Hills the handsome Sable Antelope can be encountered while in Tsavo at the wonderful clear Mzima Springs Hippos can be viewed underwater. But there is good reason why the Masai Mara in Kenya is visited by more wildlife photographers than any other comparable site in Africa. Quite simply, nowhere else protects the same comparable game densities and it is a fantastic reserve for predators that have a high degree of habituation to people and vehicles, so much so that vehicles are completely ignored or sometimes even used as look out posts by cheeky Cheetahs! Moving south and just with East Africa Southern Africa hosts some outstanding parks and game reserves, and the abundant and diverse big game are habituated to people and vehicles at many sites. Botswana, Zambia, South Africa and Namibia all offer a high standard of accommodation too, some of it five star luxury at exorbitant cost but there is plenty of choice to suit most budgets. As with East Africa it is advisable to avoid the wet season. Having said that every season has its attractions and different locations offer very different experiences depending on the season you visit. Take Namibia s Etosha National Park for example. Before the rains the land is parched and hundreds of animals will congregate around water holes, game viewing and photography is therefore very productive. Come the rains and the first flush of green and all the herbivores disperse with many species dropping their young thus very different photographic opportunities are available. When searching for game and predators such as the big cats then the time of day you are out is perhaps the most important factor. A typical day on safari in africa will start with a quick slurp of coffee before sunrise then out in a vehicle and hopefully in position with a subject at sunrise.

8 PAGE 8 Those first few minutes at sunrise in Africa offer magical light and a chance to capture some really creative images. This is the coolest part of the day and big cats such as lions might still be hunting or made a kill overnight, equally herbivores will still be on the move and so nearly all your potential subjects will be at their most active. Generally you will then return to your lodge mid morning giving a chance to download, clean cameras and enjoy a decent lunch. If you still feel the need to shoot pictures during the middle of the day, then many lodges have drinking pools for birds or put out food. Once you have decided on your destination, next job is to decide whether to join a group or go it alone. Lets first deal with going with a group. If you are serious about your photography I strongly recommend you seek out a dedicated photography tour. If you go with a tour group who wish to see as much as possible and photography is secondary then you are likely to become very frustrated. Imagine pulling up to a potential subject perhaps lions at a kill or with cubs and having just ten minutes before the rest of the group want to move on because they have got bored and want to find something else. Such a scenario is not uncommon and I have witnessed it many times when sitting with a subject with my group in a vehicle and a constant stream of vehicles come and go. This constant moving from one subject to another is not a good recipe for taking great pic There is always something on offer to be photographed. You would then expect to go out for an afternoon game drive from mid afternoon until dusk, and it is often those few minutes as the sun starts to drop that predators start to think about hunting Searching for wildlife on a game drive is a skill that your driver and guide or driver / guide if he or she is both will be skilled at. The trick is knowing when and where to look, recognizing shapes, perhaps the curve of a sleeping body under a bush or an ear poking out. Herbivores often give away the presence of a big cat by alarm calls or a constant stare with ears erect. This is particularly relevant when searching for Tigers in India. Deer and antelope here give high pitched alarm calls which in often dense jungle are a big help in tracking down a Tiger.

9 PAGE 9 tures and if caught up in a group like this it may ruin your holiday as you will be constantly frustrated. A dedicated photography tour is likely to sit with subjects for extended periods thus allowing for a far more relaxed experience and one that should assist in taking great pictures. A good photographic leader will have been to the places you are visiting before, know where the best opportunities are to be had and assist with your photography whether technically or pass on creative ideas. If you decide to opt for a dedicated photo tour then check out your leader and do make sure they know the location you are going to. Some leaders unfortunately have poor reputations for being more interested in getting good pictures themselves and not putting their clients first, so if possible try and find people who have travelled with the company and leader before. When comparing prices of tours be aware that photographic tours are likely to be more expensive than a regular safari. This is because numbers are usually restricted on a photo tour and there are normally far fewer people in each vehicle. For both African photo safaris and Tiger photography you don t want more than three photographers in each vehicle.

10 PAGE 10 More than this and you will be getting in each others way and there is a strong possibility you won t all be able to photograph at the same time. This limited number of people in a vehicle does of course push the price up but I would argue it is worth the extra cost for a far more superior experience. There are many individual photographers and small companies offering all sorts of different photo safaris. Many of these are excellent and offer good value but if you decide to book with an outfit you are unfamiliar with, make sure your money is safe, speak to the leader and satisfy yourself the company can deal with any eventuality. One final piece of advice on choosing a tour - analyze the itinerary, get a map out to see where you are going, look at the distances you will be traveling between parks. Some tours cover huge distances meaning clients spend more time moving from site to site rather than photographing. Although it is nice to see as much of a country as possible, you want to ensure you have plenty of photographic opportunities. There is of course the other and very attractive option of organizing your photo safari yourself with a safari travel operator. With a sense of adventure and slightly deeper pockets this allows you to dictate what you do but still with expert help in the form of a guide. You can choose to camp. Cooking meals over a fire and lying under canvas listening to the roar of a lion in the dead of night is for me as good as it gets or you can opt for 5 star luxury in a lodge or of course something in between. Finding a safari operator is not too difficult with the help of the internet and many companies attend travel shows around the world too where you can often meet and talk to guides and get a feel for what the company offers. If you do decide to organize a safari yourself then the company will be able to assist on a suitable itinerary based on what you wish to achieve. One critical aspect to check is the vehicle you will be using. Many safari vehicles have open or pop up roofs which allow you to shoot from. These are a big advantage as they offer a more comfortable photographic experience. This brings me on to vehicle or van etiquette. If in a group and hopefully your leader will do this but it is worth trying to agree on seat rotation. Group members can become quite territorial about seats after day one of a safari, but some seats are likely to be more comfortable on long bumpy journeys while others notably at the back distinctly uncomfortable but maybe better for photography.

11 PAGE 11 Camera supports, focal length of your main lens, camera bag etc etc I m going to start with your camera bag which you will need to have as carry on baggage for your flight, so this needs to be no bigger that the allowed dimensions by the airline you are flying with. The dimensions are the important thing, these days most airlines though there are exceptions don t worry so much about weight. However weight may be a major consideration if you are then traveling in a light aircraft to your final destination or between lodges, then you may be limited in both hold and hand baggage weight. Often weight restrictions for these flights are set at around 15 kg for all your luggage with some restrictions as low as 12 kg. If so compromises then have to be made. As most safaris are primarily vehicle based in which it is impractical to use a tripod, then you could leave this at home and pack a lightweight monopod for those occasions when a support may be required. If you don t rotate then grudges can arise and conflict within a group marring enjoyment for all.. Have consideration when photographing in the vehicle for others, keep movement to a minimum when shooting so as not to rock the vehicle. So once you have decided on where you are going, when and how, with a group or independently the next decision is what to take. The one support I do regard as essential if taking a telephoto lens is a bean bag. A bean bag is simply a cloth bag with a zip in which you can fill with beans or better rice.

12 PAGE 12 There are pros and cons to this. The obvious con is that it is slower to move everything to shoot from the other side of the vehicle but the pros are that it is very stable and if you video too it is arguably better for filming than a bean bag. However for stills the cheaper and more versatile beanbag is the support I would recommend taking. If you are new to photography you might be wondering as to what type of digital camera you need but I am going to assume you are already using a DSLR with interchangeable lenses. Your most important decision will be which lenses to take. Although most animals on safari offer a fairly big target and are often very close, there will be many occasions when you will want wider shots showing more of the landscape, or wish to include a number of animals in the frame. While at other times it is nice to focus in on detail, perhaps an eye or an Oxpecker feeding on a zebras back. You actually never know what is around the corner and which length of lens will be best, because of this a zoom is your best option or a shortish telephoto on which you can use teleconverters. I always take mine empty then when I get to my destination ask one of the cooks or someone in the restaurant if they mind filling my bag up with dried rice, I rarely get a no. There are two types of bean bag, one with a single pocket the other is a double pocket design. The double pocket flops conveniently over car window ledges. As an alternative or in addition you can use a window mount. These are simply brackets you tighten on to the door then mount your camera on lens on a tripod head fixed to the mount. For the most part you will be wanting to use focal lengths from around 100 to maybe 500 mm most of the time with 300 mm probably being the optimum length. So a mm lens with a 1.4 or 2 x teleconverter or ideally a or mm zoom would be my recommended kit.

13 PAGE 13 Having a zoom lens really does give you the flexibility that will make all the difference to not missing shots. So often on Safari you can be photographing one subject close to when something else comes along or there is some action a bit further away and if you have to change a lens then the moment can slip by and you ve missed what might have been a winning shot. The other advantage of a zoom and not changing lenses is helping to keep your sensor clear of dust. Some safari destinations in the dry season are notoriously dusty and with fine particles hanging in the air it is easy to get a very dusty sensor after just one game drive. If you are confident at cleaning your DSLR s sensor then it is worth packing sensor cleaning materials too. When driving around you want to have your camera at the ready but with the roof and windows open inevitably it can be dusty, so I use a bin liner or sometimes an old jacket to wrap my camera and lens in to protect it, then just whip it out when the next opportunity arises. Always make sure you have more memory with you than you think you will need. On a really good game drive you might find yourself shooting many gigabytes of pictures and you don t want to be worrying about having to delete images on the back of the camera or running out of card space. Always have a spare card in your pocket for a quick change, much of the photography on safari is opportunistic and you just never know what s going to happen next. There is one other piece of kit I never leave home without and that is a pair of binoculars. This small pair I m holding up now are made by Leica and are a few hundred pounds but they tuck into a pocket and are of excellent quality. Not only do they come in really useful to spot potential photographic targets a pair of binoculars will greatly enhance your safari experience as apart from the big game there will be a multitude of birds to look at and photograph.. When choosing binoculars you will already know from buying photo equipment you get what you pay for. The three decisions you need to make when choosing a pair are how much do I want to spend, what sort of magnification should I go for and how comfortable do they feel around my neck. The power of binoculars are expressed as the first number so 7 x 8 x 10 x so a 10 x pair will magnify the image 10 times the equivalent power of a 500 mm lens. 8 x are ideal The last number on a pair of 8 x 40 binoculars represents the distance across the objective lens in millimeters. The bigger this number the more light they will let in.

14 PAGE 14 Avoid gimmicks such as image stabilization and videos and cameras built in, you simply want a pair that are solid, relatively light and render the image well when viewed through. Finally think about taking a good field guide with you. Even though you might have a guide with you telling you the different things you are seeing and photographing it is good to re-acquaint yourself with what you have seen at the end of the day and a good guide will give you extra information on the subjects you are encountering. Most safari destinations are warm or even hot but don t get caught out by the idea you won t need warm clothes. Dawn journeys on the back of jeeps into tiger reserves in central India can be freezing cold as can dawns in many places in Africa so packing some warm clothes for that first couple of hours of the day is a good idea. Take a decent torch with you too. Many tented camps have their generators turned off for

15 PAGE 15 the night so if you need to get up in the night a torch is essential. A powerful one may be useful for spotting owls or perhaps a bushbaby around the camp too.. Availability of electricity for charging batteries and computers and all the other kit you might have with you is something you need to check. All camps will have an electrical supply but it may not be available 24 /7 so you need to ensure you get crucial batteries charged in readiness for the next day. The very nature of safari photography with so much to photograph means you will be using lots of battery power. So I hope this first lesson has given you a good overview with plenty of tips on how to go about choosing a safari and the gear you ideally need to take with you. In our next lesson I will outline the basics of creative photography and how you can control the feel of a picture using depth of field and differing shutter speeds. I ll give tips on composition and show you how to capture those special moments.

16 PAGE 16 First Published in 2013 by MyPhotoSchool Ltd Copyright 2013 MyPhotoSchool Ltd. (All rights reserved) Text by David Tipling Photographs by David Tipling