While many who visit this site are accomplished photographers, the lighting conditions and photo opportunities on safari offer challenges that deserve comment. Examples are: Recommended exposure shooting into the sunset, what to do when you are shooting into the sunset, but have a dark subject (elephant or hippo) below the shooting horizon, shutter speed for capturing a fast moving fish eagle diving for prey, best times of day to shoot, where to be to use the light correctly within Chobe National Park, ISO and exposure setting to expect at park sunrise and sunset, shooting settings from helicopter, challenges of keeping the sensor clean in the park, settings for shooting the night sky/Milky Way, settings for shooting star trails, scenic overlooks inside and outside of the park …. and there are many more subjects to cover. Over time, this category will attempt to aid you in these challenges.
This week, I had the chance to visit B&H Photo in New York City and hear my friend Andy Biggs talk on ‘a day in the life of a professional wildlife photographer’. As usual, Andy did a great job of connecting with the audience. During the presentation, he shared ‘keeper’ shots as well as...
In the US, it’s 4th of July weekend, which means there will be many fireworks displays. While I have never seen fireworks on safari, I am still going to post the general info on how to photograph fireworks. Which camera? All you really need in the way of equipment is a camera on which...
In a recent Photo Contest at Outdoor Photo, I came across a series of excellent images … all by Miles Morgan. I immediately googled the name and found numerous other great shots by Miles. From there, we swapped a few emails resulting in this guest article. Miles has a lot to offer, so we...
Billy Dodson was the 2007 Winner of the The Nature Conservancy Digital Photo Contest. At the time he won the event, he had only been seriously into wildlife photography for TWO YEARS. I think this is a great story and, hopefully, it will inspire you to get out and shoot more. “I’m not a...
Many see a photo they like but cannot tell you why they like it. Often the key is the use of one of the following elements within the image. Are they the only elements of composition? No, but this group are some of the most common and easy ones to incorporate. If you know...
Following our ‘introduction’ of Sergey Gorshkov’s photography images which we called the “Botswana Water Jumping Competition“, we contacted Sergey to asked if he would like to provide a guest article on his work. Sergey quickly responded to our request with an email full of really special images. From the email, Mr. Gorshkov is no...
The internet is a wonderful tool. Programs like Facebook have allowed us to find many photographers from around the world that without the internet, we would never even know existed, much less know the quality of their work. Sergey Gorshkov is a fine example. Through many mutual photographers, we were ‘friended’ and I began...
I’ve often been asked “with thousands of images from a safari trip, how do you pick which one’s to print?”. There are a few ways one can answer this, There are obvious shoots during the trip where the action, lighting, etc. make the choice obvious versus a slow game drive. Answering this way may...
In honor of the 40th annual Earth Day on April 22, Christies Auction House auctioned off what was viewed as 40 Iconic Nature Photos. Within the group, this one, “Twilight of the Giants,” was taken by Frans Lanting in Botswana’s Chobe National Park in 1986. Selected by the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP),...
Today’s Photo of the Day is a really tough one. The original exposure is shot into the sun and at a distance. This required both a crop and the use of a lot of post processing to ‘see’ the subject elephant. Why do it? Well two reasons: First, the elephant posture was good, so...