P#7 Q3A: What Equipment Will I Need for a Wildlife Photography Trip?

Improve your wildlife photography with the right lenses

Roy Toft: This is a tough question because you hate to put limits, like, "You need this lens. You need this to be able to go photograph something," but I will give you some tips.

You obviously need to have a camera and most people are working with digital nowadays. Digital cameras are all so good.

You don't have to have the top of the line $4000 body. (Camera bodies can go up to $8000 for some of these full frame sensor professional DSLRs that are on the market nowadays.) Any of the entry level digital bodies are wonderful.

Lenses are very important. For wildlife photography, you want to do a good job and go out there and get a variety of images of wildlife. That's going to take a telephoto lens.

You're going to need at least a 400mm lens to be successful, to feel like, "I'm getting my image size. I can see what that animal is," instead of it just being a black spot on your frame.

When I look back on my career of wildlife photography, one of the big jumps in my photographs came when I purchased a 500mm lens. It was a huge investment for me at the time. I didn't have that much money, so I kind of pooled it all together and just made it work.

It was a huge jump in my photographs because I was finally getting image size. I could finally see some detail in these animals.

If you're shooting real wildlife, wildlife doesn't let you get that close. You just need to have some of that bigger glass (lenses) so you can stay at a respectful distance, so you're not pushing that envelope and making animals nervous.

Another huge ethical question for nature photography is you don't want to be pushing that envelope where you're making the animal run away or change its behavior. That can only be done if you have a decent size lens where you can stay a respectful distance from the animal.

Of course, there are ways to get around that a little bit where you can maybe work in a blind. Working in a blind, which is kind of a tent, means the animal doesn't know you're there, so you can often be closer.

Situations where you're working blinds are few and far between compared to normal wildlife photography when you see a deer out in a field and you stop. You try to approach to a certain distance and photograph it.

You need to think about a decent telephoto in the 400mm or 500mm range. Everything is a little extra from there.

Audri Lanford: The day that we met, you let me try a 400mm lens. I'd never photographed with a 400mm before. It was just amazing. In fact, we came home and bought one.

You definitely have to be in great shape to use that kind of a lens. In fact, after that day of shooting, my arm was so tired that I couldn't pick up a water bottle!

Roy Toft: We were shooting a lot of birds that day, too, so you had your arms beyond pointing up. That's kind of a difficult situation.

We weren't using a tripod very much. I definitely recommend a tripod as one of those things that a person buy, even though some of these lenses nowadays with the image stabilization help a lot.

It goes by all different names depending on what lens maker you choose. Basically, it's a stabilizer in the lens. You can get away with a lot of hand holding without a tripod as you found out, Audri. Yet, even though you have steady pictures, it takes a toll on your muscles at the end of the day.

In summary

A good camera is only part of what you need for successful wildlife photography. Roy Toft recommends investing in a tripod and a 400-500mm lens so you can be far enough away from the animals to respect their space, and still take great photos.