I think when you're doing motion blur images you can show a completely
different side to the subject. Normally in wildlife photography so much
of it is about getting the shot as sharp as possible,
showing as much detail in the subject as possible
and to go completely the opposite so you're concentrating on capturing the
energy and the essence of the subject if you like.
I think it's a great way of getting more creative.
My name is Ben Hall and I'm a professional wildlife photographer based in the UK.
My first experience was by complete mistake. I'd got to a location
I'd had three swans flew past me, didn't have time to check the camera
settings, I just picked the camera up fired a few shots and I could hear that
the shutter speed was really slow. I'd been doing landscapes to shoot before,
so I was on f16. So I thought these won't be any good but then when I got
the film back you had this amazing feeling of motion
and energy and it really connected you to the picture.
So I explored it a lot more when digital came out.
One of the most important things I think is to to get to know
not just the subjects itself but also the location.
So somewhere like a wetland reserve is perfect because you've got a lot of
birds in one area, always got chance of them washing, taking
off, landing, flying past you. So I'd always choose
places that are local, so you can visit them time and time
again and you can build up that knowledge of the subjects,
that are there but also the light as well, how it changes throughout the day.
Maybe there might be one area that's in deep shade at one particular time of day
so you know that you can go there get a dark background and it's this it's
this really in-depth knowledge that really helps
to take your shots to the next level.
Lots of birds congregated around
one area can be a great place to look because there's always squabbles that
might break out between the birds or more
action happening. If you just observe the subjects as much
as possible that's a big big part of it and you'll see often when birds dip
their heads under the water or they'll start washing
usually they will rise up out the water and they'll flap their wings to shake
the water off their wings and that can be a great
opportunity to get those motion shots.
I'm always looking really closely at the
backgrounds not just the color of the backgrounds
but the distance and the tone as well so once I've found that I'll get the
tripod set up get it as low as possible to get to give you an eye level view.
And then in terms of camera settings I'll
generally shoot on the shutter priority experimenting with the shutter speed a
lot, so I'd say between a 15th and a 60th of a
second is a good ballpark but sometimes going even slower can work
really well for the more abstract shots.
And keep that always keep the high speed
drive set so it can fire a burst of frames at one time.
Matching the shutter speed to the subject can be a can be quite tricky and
it's a it's key i think to getting the shots right.
So faster moving subject I would go with
a slightly faster shutter speed because often I'm looking for some
sharpness in the actual subject and some motion in the background
especially with the panning shots.
So whenever I'm panning I set the camera
to AI Servo mode which is the predictive focus
so it'll track the subject and I'm looking at the speed of the bird
trying to match that as I pan. So the trick is to be as smooth
as possible so focus on the subject, pan along
matching the speed of the subject and then I'll fire a burst of shots
maybe 10 or 15 shots at a time and then pick out the best one from the sequence.
If it's a bird that's hovering or a bird that might be on the water flapping its
wings I'll drop the shutter speed even
slower because the subject's going to be more still.
And then i'll just go for even more movement in the wings.
The two lenses that I use the most are the 500mm f/4
and the 100 to 400mm. The 500 f/4 is great for when the subject's further
away and you want to get that separation between
the subject in the background.
And the 100 to 400mm is perfect
for those environmental shots where you want to pull back
give the subjects a bit more room in the frame and incorporate the environment into it.
In terms of the light I look for, I mean
you don't want too much light that's the thing because you need the shutter
speeds to be slow so overcast days like this are perfect.
If it's a sunny day I'm pretty much
limited to the very beginning and the very end of the day.
When the sun's low in the sky but that could be perfect
for backlighting the subject and particularly with a bird in flight you
get the light burning through the wings especially if
you drop the shutter speed really slow you can get very
painterly effects more of an abstract picture so sometimes a
subject might not be recognizable in the shot at all but it can make a beautiful
image nonetheless.