All about Wildlife Photography

Photography is not just another hobby or a career option. It is a way of expressing oneself through photographs. Of all branches of photography, clicking the wilderness is the most difficult and the most dangerous. It takes patience and quick photo clicking ability to capture rare moments. Who can do this, the required equipments and career options are discussed below.

What is wildlife photography and who can do it?

Photographing animals, insects and rare creatures in their natural habitat, but treacherous conditions is what wildlife photography is all about. One needs to travel a lot to ends of the Earth to find that one best shot of his/her life. Since he/she has to shoot animals without disturbing them in their natural state, they have to be patient and be very dedicated, possibly equipped with skills on surviving without food, water or sleep for days together.

Discovery channel and National Geographic are household names today. The one-hour programme that we get to see in these channels are years of work, edited and shown in 60 minutes. That is pretty much what a wildlife photographer does. Many years of work go into creating a masterpiece on the subject the photographer might have chosen. Sometimes the projects need to be dropped as the photographer fails to get required shot within the stipulated time.

The ‘quick photo clicking’ is essential because, sometimes the species that is under study is either going to go into hibernation or migrate to a different location or is going to disappear for some reason and not going to return for a long time. Here, if the person is not quick, the opportunity is lost forever… sometimes really forever.

So if you are patient, know a lot about animal behavior and their habitat and have a great passion for capturing those precious moments of wilderness into photos, this is the career you might be looking for.

Equipments

Camera

A fully manual DSLR or film SLR is what gives complete control of the frame you want to click. You should be able to control the shutter speed, ISO settings, aperture settings, etc. This will let you create the exact settings for the photo. Look for a model that has multiple exposure functions, exposure compensation and an electronic remote release socket.

Lenses

A wide-angle lens and macro zoom lens are a must for any wildlife photography or for nature photography. The wide angle should be somewhere between 28 to 70 mm. The macro zoom lens can be between 70mm to 300mm (You might be using this as your default lens). This covers most of the basic composition requirements.

Tripod

To obtain shake-free clear pictures, it is necessary to have tripod. While taking pictures on manual settings, the slightest shake can blur the image. The shake can be from your hands or even due to wind. For a DSLR+lens+hood, the weight of the entire camera unit will come around 3 kg. Thus, you need to buy a tripod that is sturdy and can withstand the heavy weight. The height of the tripod depends on your height. It should be tall enough to enable you to click pictures without stooping much. It should also be flexible enough to be level on ground to take macro images or any ground level photos.

Camera bag

Of all the accessories, camera bag that suit you the best takes the longest to hunt down. Try with different brands and see which one fits all your equipment in one without being too heavy.

Other accessories

UV filter, polarizing filter, electronic remote release, lens hood and close-up diopter.

All these will easily come to Rs. 1 lakh. Photography is a costly affair!

Career options

Magazines and photography journals are the highest employers of photographers. You can also do freelancing and take up projects as and when they come. Pay starts from mere Rs. 5000, but increases steadily with quality of work and experience.

Courses in India

There aren’t specific wildlife photography courses as it requires lot of infrastructure. The entire world is the subject and learning this particular photography is impossible in confined spaces or human dwellings. However, there is a 3-month certificate course at Delhi School of Photography that might be of help.

Take a basic photography course and hit off with the experimentation with nearest wildlife sanctuary or national park.