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From firsthand experience we can tell you that nothing sticks to a camera lens
like penguin poop, and what it does for the luster in your curly locks is a
wonder all its own. At moments like that, the true wildlife photographer turns
accident into opportunity. You might ask why Wayne was positioned at ground
zero with his head twelve inches from the south end of a penguin in the first
place? The answer. He was practicing his favorite technique for critter
close-ups using a wide-angle lens. Before we go on, we would like to give you
some background information to put this photo technique in perspective. When we
first began photographing wildlife, over 30 years ago, our largest telephoto
lens was a 300mm. In those days, that was "big glass."
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Unwary animals such as the harp seal allow the photographer to use wide-
angle lenses for close-up shots. Nikon F5, Nikkor 20mm zoom, on
Fujichrome Velvia film.
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Five years
later we graduated to a 400mm with a 1.4x teleconverter. Then we had 560mm at
our disposal and we were loaded for big game. We used this combination for the
first eight years of our professional career, but we always dreamed of more
power, more power. In the late 1980s we finally bought a 600mm, and shortly
after that an 800mm. The 1970s and 80s were the days when books, calendars, and
magazines (with the possible exception of Audubon magazine) wanted tight
close-ups of wildlife. The closer, the better. However, as in all the visual
arts, when a subject or an approach becomes commonplace, artists search for new
and refreshing ways to express their creativity. That's what has happened to
wildlife photography in the last ten years.
It seems that everyone today owns a 500mm or 600mm telephoto, so close-up shots
of wildlife taken with these lenses are easy to find. Even though we still sell
lots of these conventional telephoto shots, more and more, buyers want wildlife
pictured in its environment; shots made with lenses in the 28 to 50mm range.
There are two different ways to manage this. You can shoot the scene as if it's
a standard landscape shot, and simply include the critter as a small, but
crucial, part of the composition. These photographs are what Wayne calls
wildlife dots. This technique has been popular with Scandinavian nature
photographers for years. The work of the famous Finnish wildlife photographer
Hannu Hautala is a particularly good example of this, and his photographs are
inspiring. We have many of his books and we review them periodically to remind
ourselves how pleasing and effective this technique can be.
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These courting masked boobies were displaying beside a trail in the
Galpagos Islands. By crawling on his belly, Wayne got a close-up shot
from an appealing low angle. Nikon F5, 28-70mm zoom, Fujichrome
Velvia.
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The second way to bag unusual wildlife photographs with a small focal length
lens is to do a close-up shot, making the subject large in the frame yet still
have the animal's environment visible in the background. This, of course,
requires that you be close sometimes very close to your subject. Currently,
this is our favorite way to photograph wildlife because the experience is such
an intimate one.
This technique yields a fresh approach to old subjects but
requires lots of patience as you maneuver yourself into position. With
dangerous subjects, there is also an element of risk that should never be taken
lightly. It's one thing to squirm on your belly close to a penguin, and quite
another to try the same technique with a venomous rattlesnake or an irascible
grizzly bear. The latter instance is our IQ test of the month. If you think
you would like to try snapping a closeup shot of a grizzly with your favorite
wide angle lens you should probably never leave home without supervision.
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The camera, a Nikon F4, was mounted on a tripod in the water, close to the floating nest of a red-necked grebe. We fired the shutter using an infrared remote, the Wein Pro Synch 1.
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Many subjects are naturally unwary and they scream out to be photographed with
small focal length lenses: penguins and seals in Antarctica, blue-footed boobies
and marine iguanas in the Galpagos Islands, newborn harp seal pups in the
Magdalen Islands, and Laysan albatrosses on Midway Island.
(We swear, it's
mere coincidence that most of these examples happen to be Photo Safaris listed
in our 2002 tour schedule.) Even so, it surprises us how rarely photographers
think about using their wide-angle lenses when they encounter an unwary,
cooperative critter. A case in point. The Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris office
recently sent us a souvenir photo CD with a selection of 131 top rate
photographs taken by the participants on the last Ultimate Antarctica tour in
December, 2000. The CD features nearly 75 close-up photos of wildlife and
nearly all of them were made with telephoto lenses. Only three close-ups were
taken with small focal length lenses. That surprised us, because the wildlife
subjects in Antarctica are as unwary as they get anywhere in the world. Our
only explanation for this is that the photographers just didn't think about it.
In their excitement (and penguins at close range are certainly exciting), they
forgot to consider less-conventional ways to capture close-up shots of
critters. There may be other, more pragmatic explanations as well. It takes
too long to crawl into range, or you may need to get down and dirty to get the
shot. Even so, it's well worth considering your wide-angle lens every time
you're eye-to-eye with a wild critter.
Of course, not everyone will visit Antarctica or the Galpagos Islands where the
wildlife subjects are tame and approachable, but even with critters that are
skittish and wary you can still use the wide-angle approach. Here are three
ways to do it: a long cable release, an infrared remote control, or a radio
remote control.
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I fired the camera with a 50-foot cable release. The curious polar bear was attracted to the camera by the sound of the motor drive. Nikon
FM2, a pre-focused Nikkor 28mm lens, and Kodachrome 64 film.
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A camera on its own is small enough that it's soon accepted by wildlife, and
afterwards ignored. Once the camera with a wide-angle lens is positioned and
stabilized on a small tripod or a Bogen Super Clamp, the final step is to use
some remote shutter release method. The standard cable release, made by either
Nikon or Canon, is less than a yard long. Nikon makes a longer cord, the MC-10
that reaches 10 feet, while Canon makes the ET-1000N3 that reaches 33 feet. If
you want a longer cable release you will need to make it yourself, and that's
relatively easy to do. Buy a standard short cable release and then splice in an
extra length of low resistance cable that you can buy at any electronics store.
If you don't know how to wire and solder, you can pay someone at the store to do
it for you. We did this to produce a 50-foot cable release that we've used
successfully to photograph wide-angle close-ups of ground squirrels, marmots,
and drumming ruffed grouse.
Last summer our good friend Dr. Gordon Court used a similar cable release to
capture rare shots of a wild peregrine falcon feeding its chicks on a ledge in
the remote Canadian Arctic. After Gordon placed the camera on the nest ledge,
he hid under some camouflage cloth and activated the shutter from his hiding
place, 60 feet away. The most novel situation in which we used a long cable
release was in Churchill while photographing polar bears.
Wayne was safely
inside the Polar Buggy and the camera was outside on the ground, mounted on a
short tripod. The bear cautiously approached the camera, initially attracted by
the noise of the motor drive. The 28mm lens captured the advance of the bear as
it walked closer and closer, distorting the animal's head in a comical fashion.
The final shot was a blur of white fur as the bear chewed and slobbered on the
top of the camera. No harm was done to the camera, and the shots are
hilarious.
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This tame red fox had likely been fed and habituated by campers in
Saskatchewan. While we were eating our lunch, it trotted up to us for a
handout. At the time we had a 28-70mm zoom mounted on the camera and we
squatted down and quickly snapped the shot on Fujichrome Velvia.
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There is a limit to the length of a cable release, and at some point the
resistance in the wire finally prevents a current from reaching the camera. If
you want to activate your camera from farther away than 60 feet or so, you have
two choices: a cordless system activated by either an infrared beam or a radio
signal. About eight years ago we started to use the Pro Synch 1, an infrared
system produced by Wein Products, Inc. With this system, a sensor placed on the
camera detects an infrared beam at a distance of 250 to 300 feet. This setup
has worked well for red-necked grebes, great horned owls and a number of nesting
songbirds. We usually hide inside a blind and activate the camera once we see
the subject is in position. Occasionally, the noise of the motor drive startles
the subject, but the birds acclimate to it fairly soon. Both Nikon (model ML-2)
and Canon (model LC- 3) manufacture cordless control systems similar to the Wein
Pro Synch 1, and the prices range around $600.
If you need to be farther than 300 feet from your subject, you will need to use
a wireless radio remote system. We've never used one of these, but Nikon claims
that its MW-2 radio remote control has a range of up to half a mile. Canon does
not currently produce a radio control unit. Quantum Instruments (www.qtm.com)
makes a radio slave, but its range is limited to 200 feet.
As we have said in previous columns, often one of the first steps in producing a
successful photograph is to pre-visualize the shot you want to capture on film.
The next time you get a chance to shoot some close-up shots of critters, think
about replacing your big glass with a wide angle lens. You may discover a whole
new way of seeing the world.
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