The growth of the picture/photography industry has been tremendous in recent times due to the ease at which any individual can purchase a digital camera and more advanced photography gear. This has encouraged both professional artisans and armature travellers visiting safaris, to engage in one form of photography or another. We applaud this new development and would be providing our quota to photography by outlining five key tips in this article to help photographers standardize their wildlife pictures, use natural shadows to their advantage and manipulating digital images.
1. Knowing your Gear
As with every profession or hobby, this is your first important step to mastering photography. The best moments in wildlife happens at break neck speed (between 5-10 seconds) which means you must be ready to capture exquisite events as they happen. Therefore, a thorough knowledge of your digital camera and how it operates is essential. You need to have an in-depth understanding of your camera functions such as; its shutter speed, how to quickly change focus length etc.
2. Using the Light to your advantage
Lighting is one of the most important parts of photography for it allows you paint an image that captures the viewer imagination. Therefore maximizing the early hours of the morning, natural shadows and the position of the sun would help you paint the perfect background for your picture. Amateurs or safari/wildlife agencies that have no idea of maximizing light in photos should take the route of outsourcing images to professionals for some form of editing which would help your pictures reach a professional standard.
3. Shoot wider and Shoot closer
The format you use to take your pictures depends on the subject. Therefore, distant subjects should be shot by zooming closer while nearer ones should be shot closer. Using software which can crop images and zoom in/out can also help you achieve the above effects.
4. The more subject’s captured the better
Capturing multiple animals in one shot drastically increases the appeal of your image due to the variety of wildlife captured. Therefore, concentrate on capturing diverse species when ever possible to add variety to your photograph. You could also employ the use of image editing software to enhance natural shadows, background surroundings and contrast to achieve shadow uniformity and a more professional photo standard.
5. Use of Software/Post-Processing
Usually, the best photographs are those which have been edited. Editing can be done very easily using Google Picasa or if you are an expert, you can always consummate your wildlife photographs in Adobe Photoshop. This way your photographs can meet the standards required for online and marketing use..
Purathini About the Guest Author:
Purathini is a webmaster at Smart Photo Editors. She also indulges in writing professional image editing tips and tutorials.