- Hi guys.
I'm Konsta Punkka, 21 years old professional nature
and outdoor photographer.
I come from Southern Finland
and today we will learn how to take some animal portraits.
So we just arrived to the place
and often it takes a while to get the animals come close
and that's the one of the things in animal photography.
You have to wait and wait and wait.
So I always want to take the close up shots
because I want to get the feelings
and ideas behind the animal what he's feeling.
So that means we have to use lots of patience
and lots of time to get that close
that you can feel the animal in the photos.
That's, you can always take bird shots
and different kind of mammal shots with long lenses
but you always when you're shooting with long lenses
you don't feel the the ideas
and feelings of the animals in the photos.
So today we are going to try to get up close
and take some portrait with animals eyes wide open
and them looking into our cameras
so we can get some serious stuff happening.
So right now we have this long tree on my right side
and I am trying to get a shot, which down here, perspective
towards up so I can get different sort of perspective.
So what I do, I need to figure it out
how to get the squirrel looking down on me
when I get the shot up there.
So I need to really focus and think about how
to get the animal standing around here.
So what we going to do
we are going to put this stuff here, there.
I'm going to make them stay for a minute and take the photos.
You have to think how to get close, how to get down here.
So you have to work with the peanuts or trust how
I would say to get him on the right perspective place.
One really important thing is when you're shooting
a closer portrait of scroll or fox or something
and you know where the animal is coming to meet you
with your camera, you can switch the focus on manual mode.
So then you can only think about the shutter speed
and the composition you want on the photo.
So you don't need to anymore think about where to focus.
So that's one less thing to worry about.
Often when I go to shoot, I start my day by going
to the close by landscape place to take some sunrise photos
or something so I can relax and think about
the things I want to shoot on the wildlife place.
And when I'm close enough like this
I can get the feelings and ideas through the animal eyes
on my lens and that's how I get the money shots.
The thing how you can get started with animal photography
and wildlife photography like basic is to get really know
you need to really know how the nature works,
how the animals you shoot works, like which time
of the day they are active and which area they are living.
So you can locate the place where you want to shoot
and then when you have found a place
where you start the photography, you can start to get closer
and closer and try to earn the trust by step by step.
So right now you can see that all the birds and squirrels
are coming straight to sitting on my camera
or just come here, they don't care.
So we have a trust connection
between us so we can really, they don't afraid.
So I can get super close with my wide angle
and that's the close up,
that's the main thing to get the closeup shots.
I always shoot with the aperture mode because all
when I shoot wildlife, the moments come super fast.
So you need to trust the camera
that it counts you the right shutter speed
because you have might have 10 seconds,
15 seconds time to take the photo.
So you can only focus on the aperture
and you taking the photo on right time
and the composition is good.
When I'm thinking about the light in my photos,
I have many options.
One option is I shoot my animal portraits
towards the sun, which gives silhouette
or contrast twist on the photos,
or you can shoot along the sun
which means you, the sun is behind you
so you will get really nice soft light on the animal.
And landscape behind the animal is also really soft
without contrast.
On a cloudy day you get a flat, soft light and low contrast.
In my closeup photos, I use the spot metering
to get the animals' eyes super sharp.
If the eyes of animal in my photos are not sharp
it's the photo is completely rubbish.
The thing, what I do differently in my animal photography
is I whisper the animals
and what that means is I use some sort of voice.
At the beginning when you try to find a place
to take the closeup animal photos,
it's really important that you start using some sort
of voice when you come to the place.
So the animals learn the sound and what that means.
That gives you the extra space and trust to get super close.
And when the animal hear the sound, he always look
to the camera and check you can get the shot.
It's really important that you put the shutter sound off
or on the silent mode because the animals are really afraid
of the sound.
Right now, I have already taken photos of these animals
like two years so they already know this sound,
so they don't afraid.
When you start taking the animal photos
it doesn't mean that you get super close immediately.
That means you have to take time, patience
and lay on the ground many hours to get closer
and then you can get the close up shots
because the animals don't know you are there.
And that's the main key to get the shots
without the trust connection.
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- [Narrator] Thanks for watching.
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