TOP 10 TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

So you recently bought your first DSLR camera and lens, booked a photographic safari and are ready to photograph a whole coffee table book of stunning wildlife photographs in one trip! The only problem is that you think the "P" stands for Professional and the "A" for Amateur on the camera dial! Here are my top 10 tips for any beginner photographer.


1. Focus on the eye

The viewer's attention is always drawn to the eye of the subject. This is the strongest element in your photo that needs to be well illuminated and importantly, IN FOCUS. It's the element that gives "life" to the subject. The closer you are to an animal the more important this becomes as the depth of focus increases (levels of focus on a subject). Use a single autofocus point and move it to eye of the subject while maintain your striking composition.

The king

Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

Canon 1D Mark IV | Canon 600mmf/4 | 1/1000 sec at f/4, ISO 400

2. Look for a plain background

Choosing the right background is one of the biggest considerations for the angle to photograph your subject at. The better you can separate your subject from the background the more striking it would be. This would keep the viewer's attention ON the subject. Choosing a shallow depth of field to create a blurred background is one way of achieving this, the other way is to change your position in relation to the subject until you find a uniform background without any distracting elements.

Juvenile green-backed heron

Kruger National Park, South Africa

Canon 20D | Canon 600mmf/4 + 1.4tc | 1/1000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

3. Compose! Not in the middle

When you look at the impressive African animals through your view finder, you are likely to be drawn in and be captivated by their beauty. This usually leads to the cross hair syndrome where you, like a hunter, fire straight at your subject composed in the middle of your frame. Remember to consider composing your subject away from the centre of the frame, leaving it the theoretical space for the subject to look into or move into. Try to find elements in the opposite corner of the frame to balance your subject with.

Elephant on the plains

Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

Canon 1D Mark IV | Canon 600mmf/4 | 1/800 sec at f/8, ISO 200

4. Wait for good light

The photographs that stand out above the rest are the ones that have either captured incredible action, invoked an emotion by the viewer or have a wonderful mood and feel to it. One way to create mood and feel in a photo is to use spectacular light, the kind of light that you get in the first or last hour of sunlight. This light is soft and gold in color with the low angle of the sun illuminating the subjects from the side. Make sure you get out early to give yourself the best chance of finding a good sighting in the early morning light.

Zebra portrait

Okavango Delta, Botswana

Canon 5D Mark II | Canon 600mmf/4 | 1/800 sec at f/4, ISO 200

5. Be ready!

When you capture a subject doing something interesting it can take a photo from ordinary to spectacular. A lion yawning, a bird lifting its wing during takeoff or a cheetah smiling. You have to patiently wait but be ready for a special moment that usually happens unexpectedly. It helps to learn your subject's behavior. A bird gives an indication just before it will takeoff, a lion will yawn after waking up and cheetah cubs become playful after a meal. The key is to keep your eyes open and be ready no matter how uneventful things might seem at that moment.

Elephant doomsday

Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Canon 1D Mark IV | Canon 600mmf/4 | 1/250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

6. Make sure it's sharp

Whether you photograph on aperture priority mode like most wildlife photographers or any other mode, always take notice of your shutter speed to make sure your photographs are sharp. This becomes increasingly important when photographing action or moving animals. In aperture priority mode the shutter speed can be modified by changing the aperture and ISO values. With good camera and lens support a portrait can be photographed at anything from 1/50 to 1/320 second shutter speed, walking animals from 1/400 to 1/800, running animals from 1/1000 to 1/1250, flying birds from 1/1600 to 1/2500, and small, fast flying birds at 1/3200.

Malachite exit

Marievale Bird Sanctuary, South Africa

Canon 1D Mark II N | Canon 600mmf/4 | 1/3200 sec at f/8, ISO 800

7. Make sure your subject is in focus!

This might seem obvious, but I still see a fair number of photos these days where the background is in focus instead of the subject. This is mainly due to the camera setup with all the focus points active, leaving the camera to choose where in the frame to focus. Change this setting to use a single autofocus point instead. Make sure that point is over your subject and so be in control of where the camera will focus. Another advantage of this setting is that the camera does fewer calculations to determine focus and thus focusses much faster and more accurately.

Impala pride

Kruger National Park, South Africa

Canon 5D Mark II | Canon 400mmf/5.6 | 1/320 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

8. Don't forget about vertical compositions

We are often so captivated with what we see through the viewfinder that we forget to pay attention to composition and the camera settings. Remember to compose each photo and that in nature some shapes and scenes lend themselves to a vertical composition. Don't forget to turn your camera 90 degrees and photograph in portrait mode. Tall animals like giraffe, head portraits of most animals, birds with long necks like flamingoes and herons, and landscape scenes with significant clouds might all merit a vertical composition.

Double vision

Rietvlei Dam Nature Reserve, South Africa

Canon 20D | Canon 100-200mmf/5.6 | 1/30 sec at f/8, ISO 200

9. When the light gets tricky, switch to manual mode

In tricky lighting situations like spotlit animals in the dark, or backlit subjects in low light, it becomes increasingly difficult to get your exposure right. The camera struggles to calculate what the correct exposure should be and as a result one usually ends up changing the exposure compensation vigorously, resulting in poorly exposed or blurred photos. Since the light is low we want to use a large aperture (small f-stop) and a shutter speed fast enough for a sharp photo. Switch to manual mode and keep modifying your camera settings, i.e. f-stop, shutter speed and ISO until the your histogram confirms the correct exposure.

Queen of the night

Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana

Nikon D3s | Nikon 200-400mmf/4 | 1/200 sec at f/4, ISO 6400

10. Get close, go wide

I often see portfolio's with mostly tight shots and head portraits of animals. The worst is when people crop significantly to produce similar photos but end up with poor quality and pixelated images. The tight portrait shots have great impact but remember to also take photos that showcase the animals in their natural environment. A leopard photo from the Kalahari desert should look different to a leopard photo from the Okavango Delta! Use a wider lens to include the environment and get close to your subject to have it large in the frame.

Kalahari lizzard

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa

Canon 5D Mark II | Canon 70-200mmf/2.8 | 1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 100

ELEPHANT DOOMSDAY

September is a dry month in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. The grass on the plains have disappeared and the elephants have to travel far between the acacia forests on the outskirts of the park and the wetlands in the middle of the reserve. Many breeding herds travel across the open plains daily. The dry conditions during this time of the year creates a spectacle of small whirlwinds that the locals call "dust devils". They usually first appear from 11am onwards when temperatures start to soar. I wanted to capture these dust devils with a significant scene in the foreground, something typical to Amboseli. I tried a number of times but either the dust devils were not strong enough, getting lost in the background, or there were no animals to be seen to anchor the image in the foreground. A few days passed without any success. Then, finally, I got lucky when a breeding herd of elephants returned to the acacia forests after visiting the wetlands, with a series of dust devils as a backdrop.

Elephant doomsday

Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Canon 5D Mark II | Canon 70-200mmf/2.8 | 1/640 sec at f/8, ISO 100

WHITE BUFFALOES

The north of Kenya is wild country. Most of the popular tourism only extends as far north as Samburu National Park. From there the roads get tough, the land gets dry and you might run into some friendly or not-so-friendly tribes. These tribes still live very traditionally, off the land, and have to defend their land and culture from other hostile neighboring tribes.

I recently guided a photographic safari to the north of Kenya where we wanted to photograph this land from a different perspective. From a helicopter we were not only safe but we also got the required unique angle and a great appreciation of how the habitat changes from mountains to savanna bushveld and beautiful rivers. Much of that land also forms part of the Great Rift Valley and from the air it is a fascinating landscape with lakes, craters and streams of solidified lava from as little as ten thousand years ago. It is like seeing geological formation in action.

One morning after photographing the colorful pools of the Magado crater we headed north past the town of Archers Post. This town is known as the border between civilization and the wild country. We wanted to fly along the Usao Nyiro river which is a beautiful shallow river lined with palm trees and lots of birds. Just before we reached the river we saw a herd of buffalo moving towards the river through some thick green vegetation. Most of the buffaloes were almost white, probably from a recent mud bath in the patches of white mud, from sodium carbonate, that were visible in the area. This created a nice contrast to the green vegetation and a perfect opportunity to showcase this unique environment. Party cloudy skies, mountains, river, striking green vegetation with a herd of white buffaloes all contributed towards the scene. The execution was simple, I took out the wide angle lens and after making a few turns in the helicopter over the herd I got the shot.

White buffaloes

Northern Kenya

Canon 1D Mark IV | Canon 16-35mmf/2.8 | 1/400 sec at f/8, ISO 400

STALKING LEOPARD

Like most people, leopards are my favorite animal. Not only do they have the most beautiful coat, but they move graciously and have a magical secrecy about them. They are one of the iconic animals of Africa. I followed a male leopard in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya while he was on the move and looking for a meal. The Masai Mara is known for its great open plains which is not your most typical habitat for leopards. This leopard had some difficulty moving from one cluster of bushes to the next without giving his position away to a grazing herd of impala. At some stage he was walking down a large grass covered hill, lying down, then stalking, and moving forward slowly again. We positioned our vehicle at the bottom of the hill and were lucky to capture this stalking posture at eye level, as he was moving down.

Stalking leopard

Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

Canon 1D Mark IV | Canon 600mmf/4 | 1/1600 sec at f/5, ISO 800