wildlife photos? what gear

[jack1857]

Hello,

I'm hoping for some help! please

I have a nikon d3500 with a basic cheap tamron lens 70-200 (whatever it means!)

I'm a total beginner....

I would love to be able to take better photos of wildlife- by better I mean clearer...

I know the first step will be to LEARN.....but I'm a bit hopeless and have been trying and the photos are still crap!

So, my question:

Do I buy a different camera? I'm on a budget, so was looking at bridge cameras, if so- what one do I go for?

or

Do I buy a better lens, if so? which one?

thank you so much in advance!

jack

 

[Mark S Abeln]

I would love to be able to take better photos of wildlife- by better I mean clearer...

I know the first step will be to LEARN.....but I'm a bit hopeless and have been trying and the photos are still crap!

Can you upload some of your examples of bad photos for us to look at? There may be some specific problems that we can discover.

 

[PascalNJ]

Hello,

I'm hoping for some help! please

I have a nikon d3500 with a basic cheap tamron lens 70-200 (whatever it means!)

I'm a total beginner....

I would love to be able to take better photos of wildlife- by better I mean clearer...

I know the first step will be to LEARN.....but I'm a bit hopeless and have been trying and the photos are still crap!

So, my question:

Do I buy a different camera? I'm on a budget, so was looking at bridge cameras, if so- what one do I go for?

or

Do I buy a better lens, if so? which one?

thank you so much in advance!

jack

If you don't know what the problems really are in your pictures, it is not a good idea to buy anything, camera or lens.

I agree with Mark Scott Abeln, you need to upload one or two examples. Make sure you upload the pictures like they are downloaded from you camera, no change.

 

[davidedric]

Hello,

I'm hoping for some help! please

I have a nikon d3500 with a basic cheap tamron lens 70-200 (whatever it means!)

I'm a total beginner....

I would love to be able to take better photos of wildlife- by better I mean clearer...

I know the first step will be to LEARN.....but I'm a bit hopeless and have been trying and the photos are still crap!

So, my question:

Do I buy a different camera? I'm on a budget, so was looking at bridge cameras, if so- what one do I go for?

or

Do I buy a better lens, if so? which one?

thank you so much in advance!

jack

Wildlife is a huge topic. What are you wanting to photograph and wh?

 

[Leswick II]

Take a look at Nature and Wildlife Photography forum here (just one suggestion)...and you can determine for yourself what equipment works for folks, how photos render, etc.

Lots of this has to do with specific technique...and you can always ask questions.

 

[jack1857]

Thank you

Hello,

I just want to take good photos of animals and birds around where we live...deer, hares, foxes etc- nothing too exotic!

 

[jack1857]

thank you, I've just uploaded a few photos. I just want to be able to get a clear photo of the animal.....now it's all blurry and meh!

 

[Leswick II]

Most wildlife photographers use faster shutter 1/1000 or even higher for birds in flight. It helps that the camera has clean high ISO's....otherwise you may have to use some app to reduce the grain in the photo. Under most circumstances I use a longer lens (200-500) that has a great VR and even when I slow the shutter some, the pic is still sharp.... ....assuming the animal does not starts galloping.

Having said that, good lighting is v. helpful and so is support (tripod, monopod or even beanbag). The 300mm might be on the short end for wildlife....so there is that.

Understanding the animal helps also. It takes time to grasp all that....

 

[FrancoD]

The EXIF data tells me that you are using a 70-300mm at 300mm (450mm equivalent) on f/ 5.6.

Those lenses are usualy not that good at full aperture so I would close the lens to the next setting at least (f /6.3 ?)

Not sure but it looks like at least the deer photo was through a window. If that is the case avoid it unless you are right at the window and the subject is not too far .

Mostly it's pretty hard to take good photos in dull light or if the subject is in the shade.

For those subjects 1/500 should be enough.

 

[Bill Ferris]

Thank you for sharing some photos you've taken with your current kit.

I recommend continuing to use your current gear until you've mastered the basics. That basic skill set will translate to any upgraded system you end up choosing. Along the way to developing those skills, you'll gain a better appreciation of the functionality you need from a system upgrade. That can go a long way in guiding the choice of new gear.

So, the basics include light, composition, focus, anticipating the moment, and learning which combination of shutter speed, f-stop, and ISO will deliver the goods.

I always begin with light because without it, we're just telling stories instead of sharing photos that bring stories to life. You've already got an idea where to find animals to photograph. The next step is figuring out where you should be so thay the sun is at your back when the animals are present. Placing the sun behind you means it's illuminating the face of any animal that shows up. That's got potential as a good photo.

Composition is more than where the animal is in the frame it's also how much of the frame the animal fills. This is where being limited to a 300mm lens can present a challenge. If you're able to be near the subject without disturbing them, you're all set. If not, look for locations with backgrounds that help tell the story of the animal. Composing environmental portraits of wildlife is one way of compensating for not being near enough to fill the frame. Also, get down to eye level with the animal. That's empowering to the subject.

Focus is a technical skill that requires you to learn which autofocus mode most consistently produces well-focused images. It's usually AF-C (continuous autofocus) combined with 1 AF point or a small cluster of points positioned over the subject's nearest eye. The eyes are, as the saying goes, the window to the soul. If one or both eyes is in focus, the photo will be perceived by others as well-focused.

Interesting behaviors, interactions with other animals and eye contact with you, the photographer, make for good moments to photograph. This can take real patience to wait to press the shutter release until the animal is doing something interesting. But if you wait, you'll sometimes be rewarded.

Finally, we arrive at the settings. This can be both complicated and simple. Let's start with simple. F-stop is the setting that controls depth of field. Unless the situation calls for something else, I recommend you keep the lens wide open at the smallest f-number. That will probably be enough depth of field and it contributes to delivering more light to the sensor.

I recommend a shutter speed of about 1/500-second for animals. If there's abundant light, 1/1000 is even better. I've gone as slow as 1/40 or 1/50 in very low light situations when I needed a slow shutter speed just to capture enough light to make a decent image. If your goal is to freeze motion, 1/500 should do the trick. The slower you go, the more selective you need to be about when to make an exposure.

Finally, there's ISO. If you can keep ISO in the 400 to 1000 range and fill the frame with a good composition, you're set. If not...well this is where you start taking notes in what works and what doesn't.

Your photography will improve with more practice, and you will gain a better understanding of both the strengths, and weaknesses of your current gear. These are all positives.

Good luck.

 

[FrancoD]

Finally, we arrive at the settings. This can be both complicated and simple. Let's start with simple. F-stop is the setting that controls depth of field. Unless the situation calls for something else, I recommend you keep the lens wide open at the smallest f-number. That will probably be enough depth of field and it contributes to delivering more light to the sensor.

I recommend a shutter speed of about 1/500-second for animals. If there's abundant light, 1/1000 is even better. I've gone as slow as 1/40 or 1/50 in very low light situations when I needed a slow shutter speed just to capture enough light to make a decent image. If your goal is to freeze motion, 1/500 should do the trick. The slower you go, the more selective you need to be about when to make an exposure.

Finally, there's ISO. If you can keep ISO in the 400 to 1000 range and fill the frame with a good composition, you're set. If not...well this is where you start taking notes in what works and what doesn't.

Your photography will improve with more practice, and you will gain a better understanding of both the strengths, and weaknesses of your current gear. These are all positives.

Good luck.

The problem here is that the OP's photos are soft.

He is using a Tamron 70-300mm . At 300mm f/5.6 is the widest aperture and that is the one the OP is using.

It happens to be the worst aperture, in that lens, when it comes to sharpness .

Here is how one review describes the situation :

"At 200mm the lens begins to show signs of weakness, with a bit of a soft center at its widest aperture of ƒ/5. You have to stop down to ƒ/8 to get past this, to what amounts to actually quite decent sharpness; it doesn't get any better at ƒ/11. Performance isn't any better at 300mm; ƒ/8 and ƒ/11 are the best settings here, where they provide adequately sharp images."

Note the difference at 70mm :

"At 70mm and ƒ/4, the lens is quite sharp, with some light corner softness in the top right and bottom left corners; stopping down to ƒ/5.6 provides almost tack-sharp results (some very slight softness remains in those corners), but at ƒ/8 it's essentially tack-sharp"

Loading…

www.imaging-resource.com

You will find that user revius will often agree with that (it's soft past 250mm or so but a bit better if you stop it down)

 

[jack1857]

Thank you for all your comments.

I think I get frustrated because we don’t always get to see these animals here and when they come up....I get my camera, spend 20 minutes trying to get a good shot....and all I get is this slightly blurry thing!

With my current lens, that’s as far as it goes, when it’s not fully extended I get better photos.....but then again the objects are smaller so it doesn’t matter

I got some fairly decent photos of birds against the snow background so I think you must be all right in saying how lighting is important! Living in a very cloudy part of the world we don’t get much sun.

I don’t want to waste any money- ie buy something that will not get me the desired effect or will hit the limit of how far it would take me soon....which is why I thought I’d ask you guys for some advice before writing to Santa!

would a better have given me a better quality photos in these instances (hare and deer?)

or would a better camera do that? (Bigger sensor etc so more light goes in)

Or as an amateur should I get a point and shoot camera as that will do the hard bit for me and I will never get amazing photography but at least I can take some semi decent looking photos in the meantime?

 

[FrancoD]

Let me put it in a very simple but straightforward way :

Tamron 70-300mm on 300mm at f/5.6 = no good.

I know that a lot of people mean well with generic advice but there is no way around that.

Apart from having a lens tha does perform better at the wider apertures , distance and light are very important.

Here is a thornbill I shot today.

I have a lot of crap shots of this bird in bad light and or at a distance but this one was happy to pose at about 3 metres away , in the sun :



This is from my wife's Panasonic FZ300 also from today .

Probably at 30 metres or so



And this is my effort :



The Hobby in mine is a bit sharper however her photo is much better.

That Pana is about $500, mine , a lot more than that.

(not the first time she captures a better moment than me and no, she would not like to use my camera...)

A step up in lens quality with yours is the Tamron 100-400mm and up from that again... it gets a lot more expensive again.

BTW, we do have a few hares around here, in fact I saw one very close to the tree where the Hobby i but I still have not managed to take anything that is anymore than an ID photo of one.

but I have had some rabbits at a closer distance AND still.



I wish I had a decent photo of a hare because many locals don't believe they are about.

To avoid misunderstanding, i don't have anything against Tamron. I have sold a lot of them and at the moment own two. In fact I am convinced that the Sony lens that took the rabbit is also made by Tamron (a lot of Sony lenses are).

 

[Mark S Abeln]

Thank you for posting these images. That should really help us help you!

One of the basic principles of photography is to "fill the frame with your subject". Unless you do want a lot of visual context around your subject, a photo of mainly the rabbit would require a 1000 mm lens for your camera, which is getting into near astronomical prices.

Serious wildlife photographers, from what I've read, do crop their photos considerably, but being able to do this successfully requires really good optics, which unfortunately you don't have. As mentioned, don't photograph through windows.

Another option is to get closer to your subject, and while good fieldcraft is a key to great wildlife photography, this is difficult and time consuming.

At first I thought this image exhibited motion blur (maybe you panned the lens along with the rabbit?) but upon closer inspection, what I thought was motion blur was actually lens aberration.

Finally, this image is about a stop too dark. Getting a full range of tones from white to black (another basic principle of photography!) helps give an image pop, helping the viewer see more detail. Your image metadata says that you used an auto exposure mode; I would suggest verifying the image lightness using your camera's histograms, and then adjust the lightness by using the exposure compensation feature.

Getting more light on the subject would help tremendously, but other options include a slower shutter speed and higher ISO. As others mentioned, this lens likely would give you better results by stopping it down.

This image is about two stops too dark, and the rabbit is rather small in the frame.

The image is about 2/3rds of a stop too dark, maybe more (up to 2-½ stops) if you want good brightness on the deer at the risk of blowing out the background. There does appear to be some camera shake here.

Using an old rule of thumb, a 300 mm lens on your sensor size needs about 1/500th second or higher to avoid shake, but of course this is highly variable. I'd feel more comfortably myself at 1/1000th, but many have steady hands and good shooting discipline and can get away with longer shutter speeds. Or they take a burst of images, hoping that one of them will be sharper than the others.

I would suggest stopping down the lens to f/8, using a high shutter speed of 1/500th or faster, and then use exposure compensation along with automatic ISO to get adequate image lightness. Then you can evaluate the noise that comes from underexposure and see if the results are acceptable.



--

The Refracted Light

A website about the Art and Science of Photography

therefractedlight.blogspot.com

 

[D Cox]

Your photos aren't slightly blurry, they are extremely blurry. The reviews quoted do say the lens is weak at the widest aperture and longest zoom; but the quality you're getting is truly bad.

Part of the trouble is inaccurate focus. The fence behind the hare is sharper thaqn the animal, although still not really sharp. Maybe some adjustment of the focussing would help. Ask on the Nikon forum how this is done for your model.

Unfortunately good long zoom lenses (and you need 400 or 500mm for that hare) are expensive.

You might ask on the Nikon forum to see what people recommend. Perhaps Sigma or somebody do a good lens at a not too extreme price. There may be something used to look out for.

Good luck.

 

[D Cox]

Thank you for posting these images. That should really help us help you!

One of the basic principles of photography is to "fill the frame with your subject". Unless you do want a lot of visual context around your subject, a photo of mainly the rabbit would require a 1000 mm lens for your camera, which is getting into near astronomical prices.

Serious wildlife photographers, from what I've read, do crop their photos considerably, but being able to do this successfully requires really good optics, which unfortunately you don't have. As mentioned, don't photograph through windows.

Another option is to get closer to your subject, and while good fieldcraft is a key to great wildlife photography, this is difficult and time consuming.

At first I thought this image exhibited motion blur (maybe you panned the lens along with the rabbit?) but upon closer inspection, what I thought was motion blur was actually lens aberration.

Finally, this image is about a stop too dark. Getting a full range of tones from white to black (another basic principle of photography!) helps give an image pop, helping the viewer see more detail. Your image metadata says that you used an auto exposure mode; I would suggest verifying the image lightness using your camera's histograms, and then adjust the lightness by using the exposure compensation feature.

Getting more light on the subject would help tremendously, but other options include a slower shutter speed and higher ISO. As others mentioned, this lens likely would give you better results by stopping it down.

This image is about two stops too dark, and the rabbit is rather small in the frame.

The image is about 2/3rds of a stop too dark, maybe more (up to 2-½ stops) if you want good brightness on the deer at the risk of blowing out the background. There does appear to be some camera shake here.

Using an old rule of thumb, a 300 mm lens on your sensor size needs about 1/500th second or higher to avoid shake, but of course this is highly variable. I'd feel more comfortably myself at 1/1000th, but many have steady hands and good shooting discipline and can get away with longer shutter speeds. Or they take a burst of images, hoping that one of them will be sharper than the others.

I would suggest stopping down the lens to f/8, using a high shutter speed of 1/500th or faster, and then use exposure compensation along with automatic ISO to get adequate image lightness. Then you can evaluate the noise that comes from underexposure and see if the results are acceptable.

Those photos can easily be lightened on any processing program. I think the blur is the big problem.

Don Cox

 

[D Cox]

Here is one article on calibrating focus with Nikon DSLRs.

How to Quickly Test Your DSLR for Autofocus Issues

photographylife.com

 

[NikonNature]

One way to practice is to shoot a stuffed animal. That way you don't have to wait for a random opportunity. You can control the distance, the subject will remain still, you can try different lighting situations and angles, all while tweaking your camera settings to your hearts content.

This should help you work out issues with your gear, or your technique.

 

[lehill]

Hello,

I'm hoping for some help! please

I have a nikon d3500 with a basic cheap tamron lens 70-200 (whatever it means!)

I'm a total beginner....

I would love to be able to take better photos of wildlife- by better I mean clearer...

I've seen your sample photos and read all the comments. You're not doing anything fundamentally wrong. All the samples are pretty dark and improve when brightened up.

Has this lens ever given you a decent photo at any time? Can you get decent photos with your other lenses?

I noticed these areas in one of your samples:


Entire left edge of frame is distorted. The little white flowers (clover?) are doubled on the right side of the frame. Everything is equally fuzzy from close to far distance.

We expect a very cheap lens to be unsharp in the center and have fuzzy corners. But even in a cheap lens, gross asymmetrical distortions and doubling should not happen. The center isn't unsharp, it's just plain fuzzy.

I'm thinking there could be something wrong with the lens. What happens when you take a very simple photo - like a straight-on shot of a brick wall, the side of a shed, etc?

--
Lance H

 

[Bill Ferris]

Finally, we arrive at the settings. This can be both complicated and simple. Let's start with simple. F-stop is the setting that controls depth of field. Unless the situation calls for something else, I recommend you keep the lens wide open at the smallest f-number. That will probably be enough depth of field and it contributes to delivering more light to the sensor.

I recommend a shutter speed of about 1/500-second for animals. If there's abundant light, 1/1000 is even better. I've gone as slow as 1/40 or 1/50 in very low light situations when I needed a slow shutter speed just to capture enough light to make a decent image. If your goal is to freeze motion, 1/500 should do the trick. The slower you go, the more selective you need to be about when to make an exposure.

Finally, there's ISO. If you can keep ISO in the 400 to 1000 range and fill the frame with a good composition, you're set. If not...well this is where you start taking notes in what works and what doesn't.

Your photography will improve with more practice, and you will gain a better understanding of both the strengths, and weaknesses of your current gear. These are all positives.

Good luck.

The problem here is that the OP's photos are soft.

He is using a Tamron 70-300mm . At 300mm f/5.6 is the widest aperture and that is the one the OP is using.

It happens to be the worst aperture, in that lens, when it comes to sharpness .

Here is how one review describes the situation :

"At 200mm the lens begins to show signs of weakness, with a bit of a soft center at its widest aperture of ƒ/5. You have to stop down to ƒ/8 to get past this, to what amounts to actually quite decent sharpness; it doesn't get any better at ƒ/11. Performance isn't any better at 300mm; ƒ/8 and ƒ/11 are the best settings here, where they provide adequately sharp images."

Note the difference at 70mm :

"At 70mm and ƒ/4, the lens is quite sharp, with some light corner softness in the top right and bottom left corners; stopping down to ƒ/5.6 provides almost tack-sharp results (some very slight softness remains in those corners), but at ƒ/8 it's essentially tack-sharp"

https://www.imaging-resource.com/lenses/tamron/70-300mm-f4-5.6-di-vc-usd-sp-af/review/

You will find that user revius will often agree with that (it's soft past 250mm or so but a bit better if you stop it down)

That's disappointing to hear. I own and use a couple of Tamron Di VC USD (gen 1) lenses and both are sharp wide open. I've not shot with their 70-300 but if it truly is incapable of delivering a focused image to the sensor at 300mm, f/5.6, that's a weakness and the lens needs to be retired from wildlife photography work.

If the OP suspects the lens is this bad, I'd recommend making some test shots at home to confirm performance. You can print a resolution chart, find a reasonably-sized and detailed item in your home to use, or choose something having fine detail (the south-facing wall of your house?) out in your yard. If you've got a tripod, set up the camera and lens outside in good light to photograph the target from a distance of about 10 feet (3 meters). Make a few test exposures at 300mm, f/5.6. Then double the distance and make another set of test photos. Double the distance a second time and make another set.

The light should be good enough to allow for a shutter speed of 1/500 or faster at f/5.6 and ISO 200. Use the camera's timer to add a 10-second delay between a press of the shutter release and make an exposure. This should allow plenty of time for any vibration induced by pressing the shutter release to dampen.

What we're looking for is a distance where (hopefully) the lens can make a good image at 300mm when wide open. Photos should look good and crisp with the subject at 10 feet. We're also looking for a distance where the lens becomes too soft to make usable photos. If it's still making good images at 40 feet (12 meters) from the target, look for something farther in the distance to use.

Good luck.