WildShots

Learning wildlife photography – Lighting

Posted on 29. Dec, 2008 by Paul Burwell in Everything, Instructional, Techniques, Wildlife photography

Grey Wolf walking through the snow - CA

Lighting – Learning to see the light and interpret how it will look in an image is a critical skill for a wildlife photographer. The early and late light of the day is often the best light of the day and fortunately coincides with the times when many animals are most active. On the other hand, photographing under high overcast skies provides soft-box conditions where you don’t need to worry about harsh light and deep shadows.

Flash can add a catch-light in an animal’s eyes. Eyes without catch-lights have a dull or even dead appearance. Flash can also help even out the light and fill in those shadow areas. Concern needs to be given when using flash as to how it affects the animals being photographed and using the flash’s light in moderation to avoid creating images that appear “over flashed.” Using a flash bracket moves the flash away from the lens which helps eliminate the eye shine that may occur with a camera mounted flash.

Red Fox vixen standing near the top of a hill

One simple technique is to keep the sun at your back and your shadow pointing toward your subject.  As long as your shadow is pointing toward your subject, you’re going to have pretty good lighting on your subject.

Of course, when it is the middle of the summer, it is next to impossible to make great photos under the mid-day sun, regardless of where your shadow is pointing.  In that circumstance, you’ll want to stick to the sweeter early morning and late evening light.  Unless I happened to have stumbled upon a Sasquatch, I’ll usually opt not to photograph a subject under harsh lighting rather than end up with a bunch of images I’ll later throw out anyway.

Photographing dark coloured animals can be a tricky proposition under sunny conditions and it is even trickier if you’re shooting them against something bright like snow.  Even the newest, latest, greatest, super-duperist digital cameras still don’t have the dynamic range to capture those scenes without sacrificing either the shadows or the highlights.  So, you need to make a decision as to which your prepared to sacrifice and live with the consequences.  You’ll probably have the best luck photographing dark coloured animals against bright backgrounds under high overcast conditions.

Northern Hawk Owl perched on a scorched tree during sunset

If you find yourself in a situation where you have option other than shooting into the light, you can either expose for your subject and understand that you’re going to blow-out your background, or you can look for opportunities to make silhouettes.  Rim lighting can be a very effective method of drawing attention to your subject or you can use enough flash power can also let you balance out the background light and make a back lit image with balanced light.

A lot of wildlife photography is about getting yourself to the right place at the right time of day.  That’s going to give you the best opportunity to make images under ideal lighting conditions.  And if you can’t do that, you’ll at least have a couple of tricks up your sleeve for making some decent images under sub-optimal conditions.

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Tags: learn, learning, lighting, Photography, suggestions, Three Ps, tips tricks & techniques