P#8 Q7A: 2 Terrific Exercises for Improving Your Wildlife Photography

An exercise to improve your panning so you take better wildlife photographs

Roy Toft: Certainly. We talked a lot about the panning. Everybody can tell that that's something that I like to do, especially the slow shutter speed panning when an animal is moving.

I'll suggest a great place to practice this technique -- because it is something you need to practice. You can't just go out there and expect to be good at it.

You need to practice that subtle movement and to follow an animal, focus while he's moving, and push the shutter button at the right time.

A great place to practice this is a dog park. If you have a dog park in your area, and I live in San Diego - so we have a wonderful beach dog park in Del Mar, and I love to go down there with my camera.

At the dog park, we have all these subjects, wonderful subjects, running back and forth, chasing balls, chasing each other, and it's a wonderful place to practice this technique.

Once you nailed it at the dog park, then you're ready to go to Africa and do it with the wild hunting dogs.

Another fun exercise you can do in your own backyard

Here's one other exercise that I think is really fun: so much of wildlife photography is about these little windows of time with wildlife that you have to do all this stuff. You know, you have to focus, you need to get the right exposure, you need to get the right composition -- and all this before the bird flies away.

It's tough for people that don't get their hands on their camera a lot.

A fun exercise to help you with this technique of working quickly is to go in your backyard, and get a bunch of stuffed animals, and put them in all different places in your backyard. Do this exercise with a friend.

Put one up in a tree, another on the ground, put one in a shady area -- put them in different lighting situations. Put some small animals, like a little plastic frog, on a leaf.

You have all your camera equipment with you in the backyard.

Then, have your friend point to a subject and say, "Photograph that."

You have to put the right lens on, get the right distance without scaring the animal. If it's a frog, you have to get on your knees and be close.

If it's in the shade, you have to change your exposure compensation, because you have to compensate for the shade.

Do I need to put a flash on?

Practice your auto focusing and changing your composition.

You're going to try to do all this in a minimal amount of time because that's what happens in the field. You have a minimal amount of time.

When I'm in the field, oftentimes everybody is just getting the right lens on when the bird flies away. It's because they didn't do this exercise and practice enough; they didn't practice to work fast.

One of the things that I pride myself in on when I'm in the field is I can work very quickly. That's what everybody needs to do.

So that's just another fun thing you can do at home. It really teaches you to think through a situation. If I'm shooting a bird, what lens do I need to have on? Should I be on a tripod, should I have a flash? And work quickly.

In conclusion

Doing these two exercises for wildlife photography will improve your photographs.

Roy Toft recommends you practice panning at a dog park with moving animals, and set up a mini wildlife habitat in your backyard with stuffed and plastic animals so you can practice getting your shots rapidly.

When you apply these practice sessions to more difficult situations, you'll be able to think quickly and capture the moment so you get the wildlife photography shots in real life situations.