ANGLE MATTERS
Take time to find the ideal camera angle for your image. Often, angle doesn’t get the attention it deserves, considering the role it plays in a successful image.
The sentence above is a bit of a generalization, but considering how even tripod manufacturers spend more time designing a tripod that can easily be raised to eye level for maximum comfort than designing a tripod that adapts perfectly to photography on ground level, the statement isn’t that big of a leap.
A tripod’s primary job is to help you to take great photos; helping you do so with maximum comfort should come second. After all, it’s no secret that the best angle is seldom at human eye level.
If you’ve captured a moment in a bird’s life as seen through the eyes of another bird, instead of an external observer, the dynamics in the image are way more interesting. The easiest way to create a feeling of peer perspective is to photograph at your subject’s level. It’s not as difficult as photographing a flying bird or birds flitting about the trees, but your equipment will pose some limitations when shooting from ground level. Watching through the viewfinder is awkward, your sense of the horizon is distorted, and aiming can be difficult.
Using an angle finder helps by allowing you to look through your viewfinder from the top, but even so, your position is far from ideal for observing birds and your surroundings. Sometimes you can improve the conditions; you can dig a hole in the ground to get lower than your camera and shoot from a more normal position; or wear clothing that protects you against wet, muck, and cold and lie down to photograph; or use a mat.
This is a self-made ground pod for photographing at 0–30 cm (0–11.8 in) height. I have yet to find these commercially made.
Egrets and herons fishing, with a Black-crowned Night-Heron in the foreground (Nycticorax nycticorax). The reflection is the strongest when photographing at water level and the surface is dead calm with-nothing to break it—no leaves, twigs, or small insects, for example.
Nikon D300, Tokina 10–17mm f/3.5–4.5, 1/250 second, 13mm, f/9.0, ISO 400, manual focus, remote control head, blind. Pusztaszer, Hungary, August 2010.
Common Cuckoos fighting (Cuculus canorus). Taken from a tower blind in a diagonal slant downward to get the green lawn in the background.
Nikon D300, 300mm f/2.8, 1/1000 second, f/2.8, ISO 640, manual focus, Gitzo tripod and video head, blind. Pusztaszer, Hungary, May 2008.
Dalmatian Pelicans and Yellowlegged Gulls fighting over nesting sites (Larus michahellis, Pelecanus crispus). I photographed at ground level to get the blue sky into the background and to avoid having the horizontal line split the image in half.
Nikon D200, 14mm f/2.8, 1/640 second, f/7.0, ISO 400, manual focus, handheld camera, blind. Romania, April 2007.
Viewers are instinctively drawn to an image that is taken from an unusual angle, and that makes them wonder how the image was taken in the first place. We like to see images where we can marvel at the photographer’s skill and ingenuity in beating the difficulties posed by equipment, angle, and distance.
You can approach your subject from many angles, and in my opinion you are indeed justified to take time to consider all the options—and even try them. What would the outcome be if the subject were photographed from below, above, far away, close up, with a wide lens, or with a telephoto lens?
Birds are usually wary, which means you don’t always get a chance to test the angles. But some locations have a lot of birds on a regular basis, offering you valuable opportunities to test angles. Testing is recommended for beginning and advanced photographers alike because the best camera angle is usually a sum of many variants, and experience helps you make good decisions quickly, when it matters. It’s not just the angle that needs to be decided, but how you’re going to get that angle in field conditions.
Here are a few hypothetical examples to demonstrate how a situation affects your camera angle.
A Black-winged Stilt pair is wading in shallow water and looking for food.
The ideal angle is 30 cm (11.8 in) above water, which would accommodate the birds, their reflections, and the sedges in the background.
A Black-winged Stilt pair is wading in shallow water and looking for food; the wind is rising.
I would photograph at water level because the bright sky is now reflecting on the waves. I would lower the camera as much as possible so the horizontal line between the water and the reeds wouldn’t split the image at the halfway point.
A Black-winged Stilt pair that had been wading in the shallow water and looking for food begins to copulate.
The ideal height from water is 80 cm (31.5 in) because the combination of the male on top of the female, with the male’s open wings, is so high that if I were to photograph from a lower level, the horizontal line would split the male in half and make the image half green, half white. But because I am photographing from a greater height, the blue sky reflecting on the water makes a good background for the mating birds.
A Black-winged Stilt pair with a brood is wading in shallow water near the blind; the water is still and the surface is completely flat.
I would photograph from a height of 120 cm (47.2 in) from the water because this would capture the chicks’ and the parents’ reflections, without actually showing the parents, which would make the image less mainstream.
Even though you’re photographing nature’s creatures, whose movements and actions are just as hard to predict as the weather and the conditions around your location, it’s still hugely beneficial to make field trips so you can plan all kinds of photography projects and visualize scenarios you might come across and want to photograph. The only thing you can count on when you are actually out there photographing is the element of surprise and the unexpected. The best way to arm yourself is to gain experience, to be open to sudden changes, and to respond fast to the opportunities they offer.