If you’re new to Stop Shooting Auto!, the best way to explore the site is to click the link on the left for exposure lessons in order. That’s the gentle introduction to exposure that’s the heart of the site.
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Although I’m shooting digitally for the past 5 years, and working with a DSLR (Canon 40D) for the last year, this site has taught me so much in such a short timespan. Since I’m browsing this site I must admit I’m a lot more playing with ISO settings, aperture settings (I have a 17-85 f/4.5-5.6 and a 100-400L f/4.5-6.3 lens), exposure time, …
At this time I still need the “security” of shooting in Aperture priority mode, but in the next couple of days, I’ll surely try to shoot in complete manual mode.
Can I make a suggestion? Or rather inquire about a certain topic? Next summer I’m off to Namibia. Most likely lots of wildlife will cross my path. Can you give any recommendations which will keep me from screwing my (probably 500+) photographs?
Anyway, thanks for this great site, your fluent style of writing, and please… keep up the good work!
Welcome, Niels!
My best suggestion is to practice before you go. You obviously won’t be able to practice shooting wildlife in Nambia, but you can think about the situations you’ll encounter and find ways to simulate them.
Are you shooting birds? That should be easy– there are birds everywhere. Try going to your local park or even your backyard and take pictures of birds.
For wildlife, you might want to go to… hmm, maybe a dog park? Figure out how far you might be from wildlife, and then get about that far away from the dogs that are running about. Decide that one of them is your wildlife, and try to take good pictures of him.
Do you have kids, or a kid you could borrow for a little bit? Go to a park with woods, and ask the kid to go just a little bit into the woods and then jump out at you from time to time. That will help you deal with animals making fast appearances.
Honestly, I’ve never done much wildlife photography, but I’d imagine that you care about shutter speed and focus more than anything. Prefocus the lens at approximately the distance where you expect to spot wildlife, maybe? I’ll do some research and see if I can come up with better suggestions.