What camera settings should I use?

There's an old photographer's joke:

Fan to photographer: I love your pictures. What settings do you use?

Photographer to fan: f/8 and be there!

The point is that 'being there' is more important than any camera settings, but that doesn't mean they don't matter at all.

The 'Exposure Triangle' consists of the aperture, shutter speed and ISO value, and these are the only three ways you can change the brightness of the image: either having a bigger hole, keeping it open for longer or increasing the sensitivity of the sensor.

A lot of beginners stick to automatic as they don't trust themselves to use manual settings, but they lose a lot of control by doing that.

The camera doesn't know how fast the animal is travelling or how much of it you want to be in focus, so how can it possibly decide the best combination of shutter speed and aperture?

Why not experiment a little and decide for yourself the kind of image you're going to take?

Now, you still have to make sure you get the correct exposure somehow, and I'm not suggesting you use the exposure meter and manually change the settings for each shot! What I do is start off with a good set of general-purpose settings and set the ISO to automatic.

That way, I get exactly the shutter speed and aperture I want, but the camera makes sure it's correctly exposed.

The problem comes when there's not enough light to use your default settings, or the animals are moving too fast.

That's when you need to take charge and make a difficult decision: which is the most important, the shutter speed, the aperture or the ISO? If it's a fast-moving animal, the shutter speed obviously takes priority.

If the light level is dropping, then you probably want to compromise and change both aperture and shutter speed by 1/3 of a stop (or more).

Shutter speed (or time value)

The general rule is that you need a shutter speed at least as fast as the inverse of your focal length, so If I'm using my 80-400mm lens at the top end of the zoom range, that means at least 1/400th of a second.

Bear in mind, though, that you have to take into account the speed of the animal as well as how steadily you can hold the camera!

A good starting point is 1/1000 of a second, but you might need to push that up to 1/1600 for fast-moving action. 

Aperture

When it comes to your aperture, you generally want to shoot wide open. That means at the maximum aperture available on your lens, which might be anything from f/1.8 to f/5.6 or even f/6.3.

The main benefit of a wide aperture is that it allows you to throw the background out of focus to emphasize the animal, but it also allows the lens to acquire focus more quickly.

The more light enters the lens, the more quickly the auto-focus system works, and that’s very important when trying to focus on an erratically flying bird, for example.

ISO

If your camera has an Auto ISO setting, then that’s the option to choose for general wildlife photography.

Compared with the shutter speed and the aperture, the ISO has no impact on the artistic choices that go into any photograph, so that’s the one we should worry about the least.

The higher the ISO, the more ‘grain’ or ‘noise’ you get, but that’s more acceptable than the blur you’d get with the wrong aperture or shutter speed.

The only occasion when you might not trust Auto ISO is when you’re shooting birds in flight.

In that case, the background is generally very bright, so there’s a danger that the bird will be underexposed.

One solution is to dial in a stop or two of positive exposure compensation, but the best approach is probably to select your shutter speed and aperture value, change to spot metering and then focus on a mid-tone in the landscape such as a patch of grass.

Make a note of the ISO that the camera chooses and then change the ISO to that setting manually. That way, the exposure should be correct for birds flying in the sky. Just remember to change back to Auto ISO afterwards…

Auto-focus

Manual focus has its place in macro photography and in low light conditions, but wildlife photography generally demands that we use one of the two methods of auto-focus: single mode (AF-S on the Nikon) or continuous (AF-C).

I generally keep both my cameras on AF-C 3D, which is simply the 3D version of Continuous Auto-focus.

In fact, sharpness is so important for wildlife shots that I use what's called 'back-button focusing', which means setting up the camera so that I can focus by pressing the AF-ON button on the back with my right thumb.

The AF-C 3D setting continuously focuses on one particular point on the animal that you select when you first press the AF button, and it magically follows that point even if the animal is moving.

It's not perfect, but what it does mean is that you don't have to worry about losing focus when you half-press the shutter and then take a picture.

By separating the focusing from releasing the shutter, you get the best chance of getting that all-important sharpness in the animal's eye.

The first benefit comes when keep the button pressed when tracking a moving animal, but the second benefit comes when you simply want to lock the focus (by pressing once) and recompose.

You can also choose how many focus points you want your camera to use.

Now, you might think, ‘The more the better,’ but the problem with having more than one focus point is that the camera might switch from the animal’s eye to a nearer part of its body such as the nose, and that’s something we really don’t want.

Normally, I’d suggest sticking to just one point (and moving it manually around the viewfinder if your camera has that option), but you might want to use a cluster of nine points (or more) for shooting birds in flight.

White balance

You can always change it in Lightroom later (or another image-processing software package), but I generally still try to update my white balance setting as the light changes.

It saves time later, and it follows the general principle of trying to get everything right in camera. Messing around in Lightroom should always be a last resort.

Quality (RAW)

Shoot in RAW. There. Is. No. Alternative. 


Nick Dale Photography - https://www.nickdalephotography.com/blog/2016/5/11/getting-the-most-out-of-game-drives