I bought my first camera in 1976. It was an Olympus OM-1 which was a very good camera at the time. There were only three functions on the camera: an ASA (ISO) dial, a shutter speed adjustment ring and a film advance lever. On the lens were two manual settings for focus and aperture. That all. There wasn't any part of it that was automatic and I had to learn the basic relationships between the shutter speed, aperture and ASA.
When I bought my first digital camera in 2005 it felt like I had owned a Model T Ford and suddenly had a Lamborgini. The basics still applied but they were automatic and there were a dazzling number of additional settings and functions. The camera came with the typical users manual that showed where all the buttons and dials were and what they did but it didn't explain why or when I should change those settings.
I immediately bought a users guide that explained why and when to change the camera settings in detail. I suggest you do the same and the first thing you learn is how to turn off the automatic functions for shutter speed, aperture and ISO. It is imperative to learn how these three basic settings affect each other. Leave the autofocus on. Online tutorials are also helpful.
PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!
Take lots of photos. Take photos of anything and everything. Take photos until you know your camera. Don't worry, it's digital and it won't cost a thing and you can delete the trash. When the how and why become automatic and you can change the three basic settings without looking, then you can turn the auto functions back on and you are ready for wildlife photography.
Let's get started by defining what backyard wildlife is. I would say it's any non-domesticated creature of any size. I have seen elk, deer, mountain lion, bobcat, javelina and coyote but they rare and unexpected. More likely and predictable are the smaller animals such as birds, skunks, raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks rats, mice and insects.
The best place to start taking wildlife photos is in your own backyard because it is convenient and comfortable. What could be better? Fortunately my wife and I live in a semi-rural area and see a fair amount of wildlife but if you live in urban zone and don't have a backyard find a park to photograph ducks and squirrels or go downtown and shoot pigeons, with a camera that is.
When I got home from work in the afternoon I noticed a small bat sleeping on the bottom of our porch rail. I watched it until dark and was squatting down looking at it through my camera. It suddenly opened its eyes and mouth baring its teeth. It startled me so much I fell over backwards onto on the porch. Luckily I had pressed the shutter before I fell over. This is the photo that inspired me to pursue wildlife photography.
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| Little Brown Bat |
Depending on where you live will determine what shows up in your backyard. My wife and I lived at the edge of town and we had several chickens running loose in our backyard. The chicken feed attracted blue Jays and doves. I set up a bird feeder which then attracted more birds, chipmunks and squirrels. Some birds attract more birds so finches and wood peckers began showing up as well as cow birds, black birds, ravens and the occasional hawk when everything else would go run and hide including the chickens.
A house makes an excellent blind (or hide) if you make some simple adjustments. Place a bird feeder near a window, remove the screen, clean the window, turn off the interior lights, close the curtains or blinds on windows on the opposite side of the house, stay out of any sunlight coming in and you can't be seen. You can take photographs through the window.
If the interior of a house is dark during the day then a window works like a mirror from the outside. An animal will see its own reflection but not be able to see you which is why birds fly into windows.
The photos of the Stellar Blue Jay, chipmunks and deer were all taken through window glass. The deer was 20 feet from the house and couldn't see me but it could hear me.
NOTE: Don't use a flash when shooting through glass or you'll get a light reflection.
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| The hawk that scared all the animals into hiding. |
I also placed a hummingbird feeder outside the window. Before long hummingbirds began showing up early in the morning at dawn. Since the sun would back-light the feeder in the morning I had to shoot before sunrise. I set up a camera and flash on a tripod outside the window. I shutoff the auto-focus and manually focused the lens on the feeder. I fired the shutter with a remote trigger while I drank coffee and watched from inside the house.
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| Eight hummingbirds at once with one drawn to the camera. |
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| A little more light |
To stop the blur of the hummingbird wings it takes a shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second. My camera at the time could only achieve half that speed, but it was a moot point since I was using flash which syncs with the camera at no more than 1/250.
Just to do something different I laid on the ground under the feeder to take some photos and not a single hummingbird came to the feeder. I got a tarp and pulled it over me with just my head and camera sticking out and the birds started showing up. Hummingbirds are quite bold and I've had them fly at my face but they didn't like me under their feeder.
BE PATIENT
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| Male Acorn Woodpecker |
Sometimes I would just sit in a chair in the backyard with a camera and wait for something to show up. Be quiet, don't move around or make sudden motions. The acorn woodpecker in the photo above didn't notice me until the snap of the shutter. Then it turned and glared at me but it didn't fly away.
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| An attempt to get to the bird feeder. |
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| Northern Flicker and a female Acorn Woodpecker |
These Woodpeckers wouldn't normally get this close to each other but it started raining heavily so each bird hid under a branch to protect themselves from the rain. I took the photo then ran for the house.
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| Juvenile Black Hawk screeching to be fed. |
Down the street from us a pair of Black Hawks built a nest high up in a tree. I tried to get photos of them dozens of times but branches were always in the way. After two years of trying I finally got a clear shot of one of them during a rain storm. Taken with a Nikon D500 and a Tamron 600mm lens.
A pair of red house finches built a nest in a pine bush in our yard. I set up a camera (no flash) with a remote trigger on a tripod before the eggs hatched. I manually focused the camera just forward of the center of the nest and set the shutter speed at 1/160, the aperture at f/9 for greater depth of depth and the ISO at 6400 because the nest was dark inside the bush. Throughout the day I would watch the nest from a distance and rapid fire the shutter remotely for about 15 seconds when I saw either parent fly into the bush.
Before dark I would go to the camera and put in a fresh battery and SD card then cover the camera with a waterproof nylon stuff sack for the night. In the morning I'd remove the stuff sack, adjust the focus and settings as needed and do it all again. I did this for about 4 weeks until the chicks flew away.
Out of about a thousand photos taken I kept about 2 percent. The exposure was difficult to control because of high contrast and changing light conditions throughout the day.
An interesting thing I discovered about the finches was I could walk within about 10 feet of the nest as long as I didn't make eye contact with the mother sitting on it. The moment I looked at her she would fly away to a nearby tree and scold me until I left.
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| House finches two days old |
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| 1 week old |
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| 2 weeks old |
One night something opened and spilled our bucket of bird seed. I attached a motion sensor to the camera and caught the bandits in the act the following night.
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| Four raccoons |
I was sitting at the kitchen table when a Bobcat walked up and sat down on our porch to watch the squirrel feeder about forty feet away. It was contemplating how it could catch one. There was a sliding glass door between us and I was just six feet away. I grabbed my camera and took the photo. It never saw me through the glass and turned and walked away after a few minutes.
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| A Hellgramite for dinner. Looks kinda big. |
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| Mulberry meal. |
GO SMALL, GO MACRO
Don't forget insects are wildlife too. If you have a flower garden you might have butterflies flitting around also.
I noticed some small bugs on a Datura plant in our yard. There were hundreds of them lined up in single file on the stems of the plant. They didn't seem to be moving and it looked like a slow motion traffic jam. I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish but they held still for some photographs. I used a 105mm Marco lens on a tripod and held a sheet of cardboard above to shade the shot.
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| Leaf Hoppers |
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| Head shot |
They were only 3/8" (9.5mm) long so I couldn't see their detail until I enlarged the photos on the computer. They looked like miniature ceratopian dinosaurs.
I noticed there were worm casts (poop) on the ground so I set up the camera with a flash on a tripod and aimed the camera straight down at the ground. I manually focused the lens and set the camera to take a photo every 15 minutes all night long (32 photos). I had to turn the flash intensity down to keep from over lighting the scene.
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| First photo at 8:30 pm |
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| 12:30 am photo - 7 earthworms |
By 9 pm worms started poking out of the ground and they continued all night until it got light. I tried the same setup over the lawn and it was amazing all the bugs that showed up. You may never want to walk on your lawn again.
ANIMALS IN MOTION
I realize my dog Jack does not qualify as wildlife but he is a good subject to practice photographing an animal in motion. He is larger than most birds and not as fast so it is easier. You may have your own dog to do this with but if not go to a dog park. Don't photograph kids at a playground, you could get in trouble for that.
Set your shutter speed to at least 1/800 and appropriate aperture and ISO settings to achieve that speed. My first two digital cameras did not have auto-focus tracking capabilities so I had to press and release the shutter quickly to auto-focus on Jack as he ran towards me.
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| Jack the Shih Tzu |
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR
Blue jays were the most common birds that came into our yard. Over time I noticed a very distinct behavior pattern they had. Early in the morning before the sun came up I would go out and fill the feeder with black oil sunflower seeds. When I went outside there was always one blue jay sitting at the top of a tall pine tree overlooking my yard. It would start screeching an alarm and within seconds a dozen or more jays would fly in from all directions and land in the tree.
One at a time they would hop down the branches to the lowest one closest to the feeder. Then they would take turns flying down to the feeder, grab a seed then fly away. This continued for an hour or more until all the seeds were gone.
It occurred to me the jays flight path was predictable so I set up a camera with a flash and a remote trigger. I placed the camera about three behind the feeder and aimed it so the feeder wouldn't be in the frame. I manually focused the lens to eighteen inches in front of the feeder. I sat on the porch and would watch the jay when it flew from the tree and press the trigger when the it was eighteen inches from the feeder. I just couldn't get my timing right and all the photos were out of focus.
I jabbed a stick into the ground about three feet in front of the feeder. I focused my attention on the stick instead and when a bird past it I pressed the trigger and captured these photos.
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| Eurasian Collared Dove |
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| A lucky shot when a jay flew in from the opposite direction to claim the feeder. |
The majority of the photos in this essay were taken with a Nikon D3200 camera with a 55-300mm zoom lens. A Nikon D5300 and 105mm macro lens were used for the insect photos. The deer and Black Hawk was taken with a D500 and Tamron 600mm lens.
Continued in 'Roadside Photography'.
Copyright 2015, M. E. Thomas Photography.
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