Page 89 - World of Animals - Issue #33

Wildlife photography

Tip 4
Get the

perfect focus

Keep the eyes of the bird
sharp for a much more
engaging photograph
The most important part of the bird
to keep sharp in your picture is their
eyes, as this really helps the viewer
to engage with your subject. Set
your camera’s autofocus point to the
centre spot and set it to Continuous
Focusing. Pick the focusing option
of either AI Servo (Canon) or AF-C
(Nikon) to tell the camera you want
it to continually focus as you press
the shutter button half down. This
will keep the subject sharp as it
moves across the frame. If your
lens has a switch that controls the
focusing distance, set it to focus on
objects far away to stop it searching
for a focus point in the foreground.

Getting the focus point
on the eyes is even more
important when using wide
apertures, as the rest of the
shot will be blurry

Tip 5 Shoot at sunset for a warm
Learn where backlighting and expose for the
glow to your images, or use
sky to create a silhouette
to set up

Consider the lighting and the
background of your picture
Set up where the light will nicely
fall onto the bird, and really think
about the effect you want and what
light is best for this. Front-lit shots
produce few shadows and colours
are often great, but they can look
flat. Side lighting can add depth,

but is best shot when the sun is low, @ Thinkstock; imageBROKER; Nature Picture Library; Design Pics Inc; REX/Shutterstock
and you need to expose for the light
side so this area doesn’t blow out.
Backlighting produces a lovely rim of
light around the bird but watch out for
lens fl are.
For background, set up where there
are minimal distractions, or change
your camera angle to cut things out
of the frame. Using a wide aperture to
blur the background can also help.

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