Hello Everyone. I’m Philip Lintereur and I’ll be starting a blog. I plan to have bi-monthly inputs to new subjects related to wildlife photography and the fundamentals of getting a good photo. In my blog, the idea is to use these fundamentals in the field and hear your results. There are many facets to photography so my goal is to start with the basics and then move to other topics to create the building blocks to make you a better photographer. In these subjects, we’ll move through camera setting, lens, and other subjects to the point of post-processing.
The first item I would like to start out with is Perspective. Perspective is defined as “the apparent distance, size and depth of objects within a two-dimensional image, it’s the relationship of the of the background to the foreground of the image.” In most cases, perspective is the movement of you to the subject. It’s your movement, angle, and distance from the subject. Zooming closer to a subject is not a change of perspective, though using your feet to walk closer is! Many people take a head-on shot and don’t experiment with angle, moving closer or farther away. In many cases, I see people trying to change the camera setting rather than just changing the angle, and moving closer to get a better image. In most cases, the creativity comes from you. Not from your lenses or setting. Now I agree that wildlife, birds for example, are not easy subjects but you would be surprised how just trying to get a little closer or changing the angle has outstanding effects on the image quality. So experiment with the angle and zooming in with your feet instead of your camera. You’ll be surprised at the results.
Below I have two images: one taken approximately 20 feet from the Scrub Jay, and the next image was taken by moving 15 feet closer with the same angle, I changed the perceptive for a much better image. In most cases with wildlife, as long as you’re quiet and move slowly these techniques will work for you with great results and put you in charge of the outcome. Please give me your feedback on this topic as I would like to hear about your outcomes.
Remember photography is a daily classroom.
The image below was taken 20 feet away
The next was taken 5 feet away, by moving slowly and a slight change of angle the second image is a much better photo in my opinion.
