Three Skills of a Nature Photographer
Learn Macro, Wildlife and Landscape Photography Skills
Sep 5, 2009
Skilled and artistic photography takes a wide variety of skills. The cameraman needs to understand exposure, composition and focus to turn the scene they see in front of them into a photograph.
Even when the field of photography is narrowed down, in this case to nature photography, there is still a wide variety of skills needed. In fact, because nature photography offers a wide variety of options it requires a wide variety of skills.
Macro Photography
Macro, or close up photography, is the only way to capture the beauty of insects, small flowers and the other minute items of the natural world.
The nature photographer looking to explore macro photography needs a lens capable of close focus, a tripod and some very specific skills.
Those skills include an understanding of lighting and depth of field. DOF is the portion of the image in focus and is a controlled by the aperture of the lens and shutter speed.
Wildlife Photography
Wildlife photography might be the crown jewel of nature photography. Any photographer tackling this field will need a telephoto lens, 300 to 500 millimeters is recommended, and some skill and patience.
Specifically, photographers will need to have knowledge of the habits of the species they hope to photograph and the blinds and clothes usually associated with hunters when they go to the field.
Landscape Photography
Landscape photography requires the widest variety of lenses and a good tripod, but most importantly it requires a good eye for composure.
Various scenes may require a wide-angle lens to offer the wide vista of the landscape. At other times a telephoto lens will pull in a smaller portion of the scene that holds the most visual interest.
Zoom lenses offer a quick and easy way to shoot a variety of perspectives for the same scene, the photographer can then make the decision on what shot works best back at home rather than in the field.
Common Skills
No matter what field the photographer is pursuing there are some basic skills they need to have. Before the shutter is depressed the exposure, composure and focus have to come together either as part of the automated process of the modern digital camera or manually by the cameraman.
The task of mastering all of them can be daunting but there is good news for users of modern digital cameras.
The cost of practicing the basic skills, and the specific skills necessary for each type of photography, has gone down giving each photographer the ability to shoot hundreds if not thousands of photographs and learn from each of them.
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