Practical Photography - UK (2020-04)

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Above Shoot with a high burst rate for

the best chance of capturing the action.

AboveContinuousfocusallowsyouto

ke epthesubjectsharpas it moves.

PRACTICALPHOTOGRAPHY.COM 25

SHOOTINGWILDLIFECANBE A

hugelyrewardingprocess,butit comes
wi thits fairshareof challenges.Yourlens
couldalwaysbe longer,therecouldalways
bemorelight,yourshutterspeedcould
al waysbe faster,thelistgoeson...
But that’snotthewholestory– gearand
se ttingsareonlypartof thepicture,and
ar en’tenoughto ensureyougettheshot.
Astheold truismgoes,‘a cameranever
to oka greatphotograph’.Youneedto rely
onyourskillsas a photographer.Animals
ar e veryfast;afterall, theirsurvivaloften
dependson it. Notusuallywillingto hang
aboutforyouto takeyourshots,they’re
pr e-occupiedwiththebusinessof living.
Understandingyoursubjectsandbeing
able to predicttheirmovementscangive
yo u that extra edge you need to bag the
shot, as Marco Redaelli (marcoredaelli
foto.com) explains.
“Now in my mid-forties, I’ve been a
photographer since I was 15. Over the
years I’ve enjoyed almost every genre,
but capturing the natural world is what
I love to shoot the most. This image shows

twogreenfinches

fightingoverfood.

I’ vefoundthemain

di fficultyin thistype

ofimageis keepingthe

fo cussquarelyon the

su bjects.Theyarefairly

smallandfastbirds,zipping

th is wayandthat.Witha shallow

depth-of-fieldanda longlens,it canbe

a ta skto keepthemin focus,especially

in dynamicsceneslikethiswhenthey

st artto quarrel.It cangetverychaotic.

The photographermustbe ableto predict

th eirmovementsandfollowthemwiththe

ca merato keepthefocusfrommissing

it s mark.Theeffortis definitelyworthit,

th ough,forcapturingsceneslikethisas

th ey unfold before you.

“As for post-production, I kept it very

simple as it didn’t need much. I opened the

image up in Photoshop and tweaked the

colours a little, increased the contrast to

add some punch to the scene and then ran

a noise reduction filter to smooth out some

of the digital noise.”

TIP

USEA CROP

SENSOR

Optingfora cropsensorwill

in creaseyoureffectivefocal

lengthby 1.5xallowing

yo u to getcloserto

theaction.

Canon 7D MkII | 400mm | 1/640sec | f/4| ISO 2000

# 5 Hone your

natural reflexes

WILDLIFE