Some more tips
1. Pictures showing animal activity always get more viewer attention than those that just show them standing or sitting doing nothing.
2. Be patient and wait till you see a glint in their eyes and then take the shots.
3. Take many pictures. Remember, some shots may be slightly out of focus, some may have some disturbing out- of- focus twigs or leaves in front of the animal; some pictures may have the animals looking away from you; some may be shaky due to low shutter speeds; there are variety of reasons why some pictures fail to impress.
4. Whenever possible, use a firm tripod. If not possible, consider a monopod or a bean bag.
5. Focus accurately on the eyes. Remember, fast lenses enable crosstype focussing sensors and as such could be more reliable.
6. When a bird or an animal is surrounded by twigs/leaves/grass or other such elements, autofocus may be difficult or even impossible. Focus manually at such times.
7. Keep an eye on your shutter speeds. Faster shutter speeds ensure sharper images (at the point of focus) by avoiding camera movement during exposure and also prevent fuzziness caused by subject movement. For hand-held shots, try to maintain a minimum shutter speed of 1/the effective focal length.
8. Unless depth of field is your main consideration, try to use the optimum aperture of your lens. The optimum aperture is generally 2-stops down from the widest opening.
9. A camera that allows you to shoot at higher ISOs without disturbing noise is a bonus. The Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Nikon D3/D3s/D4 fall in to that category. In low light ( and lots of wildlife subjects are found in low light), such cameras allow you to increase the ISO ( without fear of digital noise) which in turn allows you to use faster shutter speeds, providing sharper pictures.
10. Use a faster shutter speed than what you would normally use when the subject is close by.
11. Use image stabilisation if your camera has the provision. Note that at shutter speeds faster than 1/500sec, image stabilisation may not be of help. If you are using a tripod, switch off the stabilisation (unless you have one of those lenses that allow the use of stabilisation with a tripod).
12. When shooting hand-held with long heavy lenses (something that you should avoid), try to trip the shutter as soon as focus is achieved. Waiting for a while could further tire your hands, resulting in the possibility of shaky pictures.
13. Anticipating what your subject is about to do and acting on that can get you some extra-ordinary pictures. If you, for example, see a tiger crouching low and walking very carefully through the bushes, get ready to fire away. When you see a deer stamping its feet, or when you hear a monkey giving out a warning cry, you can be certain that a predator is nearby.
14. Consider having two camera bodies, each with a different focal length lens. For example, on one body you may attach a 100-400mm lens; on the other, a 24-70mm. Remember, especially during safaris in game reserves, wild animals often come very close to the vehicle you are travelling in. With a telephoto zoom, it is possible that you may cut off a part of the animal because it is too near. The second camera body fitted with a different focal length lens may help.
15. Always set your camera to ‘Continuous High’ firing mode, but learn to fire only one shot if necessary. When the action starts, you don’t want to fiddle with the controls, trying to set the camera to continuous firing mode! 16. Shoot in Camera Raw if possible. In this mode, you don’t have to worry about the White Balance because you can change the WB as desired during post processing in your favourite Raw Converter.
17. Don’t rule out shooting in JPEG. In JPEG, you can shoot many more frames before the ‘Buffer’ fills up and locks the camera! However, if shooting in JPEG, ensure that you set the proper White Balance and that you set the JPEG for the highest image quality.
18. Learn to use Exposure Compensation. When shooting in one of the auto modes, and photographing lighter subjects ( lighter than mid-tone), compensate your exposure on the plus side. When photographing darker subjects (compared to mid-tone), compensate the exposure on the minus side. This assumes that you want your light tone subjects to stay light; your dark tone subjects to stay dark.