Sometimes luck prevails. The safari driver spotted the leopard slinking through the bushes in Kenya’s Masai Mara. The dawn light was gradually brightening, but the light levels in the bushes varied considerably as the leopard moved through them. I used my favorite exposure strategy to deal with rapidly changing light levels where a high shutter speed must be maintained to capture a sharp image. I used the shutter-priority exposure mode and set a shutter speed of 1/1000 second. Then I set Auto ISO to maintain the optimal exposure. Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 800mm f/5.6 lens, Auto ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec. with shutter-priority, +.7 exposure compensation, Cloudy WB, back-button focusing using continuous autofocus.
Introduction
I was fortunate to discover my passion while I was a wildlife biology student at Central Michigan University in the early 1970s. I loved learning about game animals—ducks, geese, pheasants, grouse, deer—and thought I would spend my life working with them, but it was not to be. While at college, I developed a passion for all forms of life including fish, amphibians, reptiles, butterflies, wildflowers, trees, and everything in the ecosystem. My keen interest in nature photography compelled me to photograph everything. Upon graduation in 1977, I decided to become a self-employed professional nature photographer instead of working for someone else as a biologist. I put everything I owned in my pick-up truck and drove toward California to explore new ecosystems such as the alpine zone in the Rocky Mountains and creatures of the southwestern deserts. I had little money and relied on unreliable income from photo sales and articles. Therefore, I lived under the stars as a homeless person for several years while simultaneously perfecting my business and photography skills. This period of enduring a meager existence was fulfilling, though challenging, but still incredibly fun for me. To this day, when a person asks me how to succeed in life, I tell them, “Find your passion and pursue it relentlessly. There is no better way to earn a living than doing what you truly love to do. Why settle for anything less?”
Barbara also enjoyed an early life with nature and animals. She grew up on a small horse farm that took good care of other people’s horses and her horse, too. Her life was full of domestic animals and the wildlife that were attracted to the farm near Avon Lake, Ohio. Barbara loved shooting images well before she met me. We met when I was the keynote speaker at a summer meeting of the Southwestern Michigan Camera Club Council. Over time, we joined our similar passions and have worked together ever since. She is a tremendously talented outdoor photographer with superb instincts and an exceptional eye for composition. She is a whiz with computers, unlike your author who constantly struggles with computer programs that refuse to do what he thinks they should do. I do all of the writing, but Barbara helps to determine the content, points out when I need to simplify things, and does all of the image processing.
Together, we select images for the book to illustrate the key points. My college background in physics and math makes it easy for me to understand the numbers and science of photography. Do not panic—you do not need to know that much of the science—but it does help me explain crucial photo concepts in fairly simple terms. I do not include a lot of technical formulas in the photography books we produce because you truly do not need to know most of it. Instead, it is best to stick to mastering the key shooting tactics that produce successful images shot after shot.
OUR FORMULA FOR SUCCESSFUL IMAGES
I am really not keen on a formula because I saw too many in my science studies, so let’s refer to it as a guideline. Stunning images need three key factors that must be present at the same time. If any one of these factors is missing, the image suffers. Let us examine each of these factors.
1. PHOTOGENIC SUBJECT
It is difficult to make a gorgeous image when the subject is not attractive. A bighorn sheep shedding its winter fur coat in the spring always looks ragged and not visually attractive, especially when compared to the same animal in late autumn or winter when the fur is in prime condition. A wildflower beginning to decay or a butterfly missing wing scales or which has tears in the wings are similarly not good photo prospects.
2. SUPERB TECHNIQUE
A handsome Bald Eagle perched on a frost-covered branch with a trout in its talons makes a lousy image if it is badly underexposed, not properly focused, or poorly composed. Strive to acquire excellent camera and lens handling technique and your images will improve tremendously. Fortunately, the technique portion of this simple formula is completely under your control and is mastered by anyone without difficulty.
3. PLEASING SITUATION
A beautiful mountain goat standing in a parking lot with a crowd of humans behind it with full sun on it at noon is a terrible situation in any event. No matter how good the animal looks or how superb your technique is, the goat image will never be awesome. The circumstances are dreadful! Find this same goat on a mountain ledge in golden evening sunshine with an uncluttered distant background and you have a winning subject!
WRITING BOOKS
This is my fifth instructional book on nature and outdoor photography. This fact amazes even me as I never had any intention of writing a book until recently in my career. Books require a tremendous amount of work, but worse yet, I must be at the desk to write them, which is especially difficult for me because I am addicted to being outdoors. I find books to be an interesting project, and each one helps me learn more about photography because it forces me to put my thoughts into words. However, I write these books primarily to share with photographers all around the world the photo ideas and shooting strategies that we and our many clever clients have come up with over the years. Our books are being published in other languages because they contain many techniques that are relatively unknown and not published elsewhere. For example, we have been at the forefront of High Dynamic Range (HDR), focus stacking, back-button focusing, using the RGB histogram for exposure, advanced manual metering tactics, fill flash, main flash, balanced flash for outdoor subjects, and much more. It takes time to get the word out! Take back-button focusing, for example. We have been using this method for at least twenty years and started using it with film cameras. Only now are we beginning to see back-button focusing mentioned in magazines occasionally. It still amazes us that back-button focusing, one of the best ways to control autofocus, is still unknown to so many photographers despite our best efforts to explain it in all of our books and to post a detailed article about it on our website. Focus stacking is another tremendous game-changer that is just getting attention. Hopefully, it will not take two decades to become widely known and used.
The group in the previous image photographed the Council Lake shoreline. Making attractive images that command attention is uncomplicated when you follow a simple guideline. You must use excellent shooting technique, have a fabulous subject, and find a favorable situation. When all three come together, shooting rewarding images is fun and predictable. Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 70–200mm f/4 lens at 131mm with polarizer, ISO 200, f/16, 1/20 second, Daylight WB, manual exposure and continuous AF with the back-button control.
My perpetual problem with writing a book is having to decide what to leave in and what to leave out. I would love to be able to tell you this is the complete book on outdoor photography, but complete in the title of any book is absurd. I could easily expand every chapter in this book into an entire book of its own. Since space is at a premium—even in a book—I will emphasize the key shooting strategies that work so well in order to shoot superb images effortlessly and efficiently. The emphasis is on producing quality images and doing it easily. I know many photographers would be happy if I told them handheld shooting is fine, you don’t need a flash, and use f/22 all of the time for maximum depth of field, but I won’t. All of these widely accepted ideas are nonsense almost all of the time, and the quality of your images will suffer significantly if you believe them. I must assume and hope you want quality images, are not willing to cut quality corners, and are willing to adopt the superb shooting habits we will suggest and explain.
The stamens on a Common St. John’s-wort blossom bead up with dew drops. It is impossible to make the entire blossom sharp with a single exposure at high magnification. Thanks to new focus stacking techniques, now everything can be in sharp focus. Barbara shot a stack of seventy-three images in which each image is focused at a different distance. She merged the stack of images into one final sharp image using Zerene Stacker software and used Photoshop for final image adjustments. Nikon D4S, Nikon 200mm f/4 macro lens, ISO 200, f/18, 1/200 second, Cloudy WB, manual exposure and focusing.
Mesa Arch is spectacular at dawn when the rosy rays of sunshine first light up the bottom of this well-known arch in Canyonlands National Park. Three exposures were shot by varying the shutter speed. These images were combined with Photomatix Pro software. Nikon D4S, Nikon 14–24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm, ISO 100, f/18, shutter speeds of 1/15 – 1/4 – 1/60 second, Sun WB, manual exposure mode and AF-C autofocus on the back-button control.