the actual wilderness, seek opportunities
to support and photograph at nonprofit,
research and museum properties where
formerly injured animals and birds that
cannot be returned to the wild are healed,
protected and serve as educational ambas-
sadors to the public. We could go on and
on about this, but there’s much information
available for those with interest in advanc-
ing their knowledge and ethical standards
of wildlife photography, beginning with our
colleague Melissa Groo’s regular column
in this magazine.
It’s the passion we have for exploration,
for seeing something new, for creating a
permanent record of what we have wit-
nessed in nature so that we can remember
the experience and share it with others
that drives us to do what we do as nature
photographers and to seek affirmation of
our work through photo contests. Today’s
excellent photographic technology, when
mastered and appropriately applied, facil-
itates the quality and credibility of our
work. As a community, we also have the
obligation to honestly convey and protect
our subjects while generating appreciation
for the natural world and the incentive to
defend and conserve it. The photograph
that accomplishes all of these goals is a
clear winner for me.
Step Up With New Approaches
To Nature Photography
Spring is upon us, and with its renewal
comes rich photographic opportunities,
from flowers to green landscapes, nesting
birds, young animals and abundant butter-
flies and other insects. It’s a good time to
renew your passion for nature photography
and to change it up by adding new tools
and techniques to improve capture quality
and expand creative options. Here are a
few ideas.
Extension Tubes: One of the most fre-
quently used tools in my camera backpack,
an extension tube is a simple accessory
that improves the focusing range of your
lenses by allowing you to focus closer.
This is especially important for close-up
and macro subjects. Place the extension
tube between the camera and lens. You can
use a normal lens (an example could be a
24-105mm zoom lens) and move in to fill
the frame with a small flower. Add a pair
of extension tubes, and you get even closer.
If you already have a macro lens, the tubes
will increase the potential magnification.
But you can also add extension tubes
to a telephoto lens (200mm through
600mm), most of which don’t have a very
close minimum focusing distance. (There
are some exceptions, such as my favorite
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II,
which focuses to 3.2 feet, but I still use
an extension tube on it sometimes.) Let’s
say you want a frame-filling portrait of a
critter that you can get close to, such as a
butterfly, but the lens just won’t focus that
close. Extension tubes to the rescue! I’ve
always carried extension tubes when I’m in
the field with my 500mm or now 600mm
lenses. When I work from a blind, there’s
a good chance that the subjects will comecloser to the camera than the long telephoto
lens can normally focus.
I use a couple of dedicated tubes (8mm
and 25mm) made expressly for my
Canon cameras and lenses. If you work
with another brand, check to see if they
offer extension tubes for their cameras or
if options are available from other man-
ufacturers. Make sure that the extension
tubes you choose are compatible with
all the automatic (electronic) functions
between the camera and lens. Then, head
out with your new setup and enjoy a new
perspective.
Teleconverters: Also known as tele-ex-
tenders, extenders or doublers, these are
optical accessories placed between the
camera body and the lens that magnify
the image received by the film or sensor.
They’re available in 1.4x, 1.7x and 2x ver-
sions, depending on the manufacturer. I
use them with my macro lenses to achieve
super-high magnification images and with
my long telephotos to safely photograph
sensitive wildlife, such as nesting eagles,
from a long distance. In either case, tele-
converters are a relatively inexpensive way
to radically improve the versatility of your
existing lenses.
There’s some loss of image sharpness
with teleconverters, but it’s negligible with
pro-grade lenses that are designed to work
with them. With consumer-grade zooms,
1.4x extenders are more forgiving than the
higher-magnification versions. Your best
bet is to try them with your favorite lenses
and make your own evaluation.
Teleconverters can also be used with
extension tubes, which aren’t optical. Place
the extender next to the camera body and
the extension tube(s) between the telecon-
verter(s) and the lens for most efficientYou be the judge. This photograph
of the iconic Mt. Shasta is a three-
frame panorama composite captured
with a Canon EOS 60D camera that
has been converted to infrared.
So, even though it appears to
be a traditional black-and-white
photograph, it’s far from what stood
before Lepp’s camera. Does it belong
in the landscape category of a photo
contest or is it altered reality?