General DSLR setup for wildlife and birds in flight photography

There are many resources which you will find on the internet and elsewhere on how to set up your DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera for wildlife and birds in flight photography, but here is my take on it...

I will walk you through my general camera setup of my Canon 7D, but most of the settings can be found on any DSLR and is not limited to the "big" brands like Canon or Nikon, although the latter two brands' settings are very similar.

Needless to say, every camera brand and model have different settings to fine-tune it even further to your needs and as such I repeat what I have stated to many people before: Know your camera's user manual  from the first page to the last!

SHOOTING / EXPOSURE MODES

The most important and generally used shooting modes are shutter priority ("Tv" on Canon and "S" on a Nikon), aperture priority ("Av" on a Canon and "A" on a Nikon) and of course manual mode ("M" on both Canon and Nikon).

Aperture Priority

I prefer aperture priority mode 90% of the time. The reason for this is simple: I can control the depth of field required for every specific scene I wish to capture. I will for example set my camera to a very general F5.6 when I get into a vehicle at the beginning of a game drive and if it is in the very low light of the early morning, even to the lowest my lens allows, which is for example F4 with my 500mm L lens.

Luminosity Masks - A must know for landscape photography

I have been rather quiet on the blog lately, but I can blame many issues for this - One is the lack of "me-time" with a new addition to our household, Rulof, my firstborn who will be four months old tomorrow, and the other well... studying the art of landscape photography and the mountain of information on image processing that accompanies it! Good excuses don't you think?!

I only discovered the challenges of landscape photography very recently, as you probably would have noted from my blog post titled DISCOVERING GOLDEN GATE. But I think I am hooked! Yes, I still prefer the thrills and excitement of wildlife photography, but landscape photography is a completely new ball game!

Why do I say that? It is very simple - Nothing matches the satisfaction of processing two images that look like this...

... to become this...

"Dawn between the rocks" - Golden Gate Highlands National Park, South Africa

Book Promo - "The Dark Side of the Kalahari" by Hannes Lochner

In the past couple of years since I have discovered the majestical wide open spaces and beauty of the kalahari desert and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, which defies the boundaries of South Africa and Botswana, we regularly came across South African wildlife photographer Hannes Lochner.

I briefly met Hannes during May 2011, when we assisted him and his companion to take a message across to Tweerivieren rest camp, after their vehicle broke down in the dry Auob riverbed. Hopefully one day I will be able to share a cold one with Hannes next to a campfire in the same kalahari desert.

Over the past two years, or 750 days to be exact, and by travelling more than 100 000 km in the kalahari desert, Hannes had been busy with a special project capturing the life of a single leopard, Luna, and her struggle to raise cubs in that extremely harsh environment.

The book "THE DARK SIDE OF THE KALAHARI", will be launched soon and promises to be an exciting  and touching pictorial journey.

Why do I share this with you? Well it is simple - As wildlife photographers we always need that inspiration to get out there, regardless of how difficult it might be or how harsh the environment is, as the best images almost never come easy! This book, like Hannes' previous book, Colours of the Kalahari, will once again just prove that.

Have a look at the promotional video below and you can also visit Hannes Lochner's website.

                 

Behind the Image - Saying Goodbye

We came across this scene at the Malatse Dam in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve during 2010. Park officials confirmed that the elephant cow died of natural causes right on the edge of the water - Maybe she was on her way to try and quench the thirst of eminent death...

The lions already started to feed on the carcass, but her herd returned, chased the unforgiving predators up the hill and then this ritual by the sub-adult youngsters followed. They were stressed and sad at the same time, with the tears under their eyes telling the story of their intelligence and almost human like compassion... Well, these days the human race can learn something from these majestic animals...

The image was taken with my Canon 7D and 100-400 mm L lens at 1/640s, F5.6 and ISO 800.

I did the initial processing in Lightroom 4 and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2, with some selective dodging and burning in CS6.

Image Series - Kalahari Love

We visited the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park during the end of May and the beginning of June 2012. We did not have as many lion sightings in comparison with the previous year, but we found these two lovers between the Melkvlei- and Gunong waterholes, right next to the road.

There are a few animals more impressive and majestic than a black maned kalahari lion at close range! I had my trusty Canon 7D and 500mm F4 L lens at hand and stayed with the two lovers for a full hour between 09:00 and 10:00 than morning, keeping in the mind that the park gates only opened at 07:30, shortly after sunrise during the winter. During that time the couple mated about 5 times, after brief resting periods of grooming and sleeping.

The couple was very "shy" and most of the time they were obscured by the long grass. In retrospect, I should also have opted for my 100-400mm lens, as they were too close for many frames.

I have decided to post most of the images on the blog, to share this amazing experience with you. You can view a selection of the "better" images on THE WEBSITE.

Well, they say an image speaks a thousand words, so here is a whole mouth full...