Wildlife Photography How To

Whether you own a dog, cat, bird, or some other animal, we bet you shoot a lot of photos of your beloved pet. It’s rather odd that many pet photos taken by good photographers look more like snapshots than the real thing, and we’re going to put an end to that today.

Those serious about bird photography often travel far and wide, sometimes to exotic locations, to find and photograph their subjects. But as you’ll see below, you can often capture great images near home at a local park or nature reserve.

There are a bunch of misconceptions about ISO settings that can hold you back when shooting in the field. Some photographers always shoot at ISO 100 in attempt to avoid noise, while others choose the highest setting available to eliminate camera and subject movement when photographing motion.

Once photographers set up a new camera, they tend to use the same functions over and over again, without investigating other capabilities that can really make a difference. In the quick tutorial below you’ll be encouraged to give an overlooked feature a try, and we’re convinced that better images will be the result.

(Editor’s Note: Exploring Light is a monthly Shutterbug column featuring tips, tricks, and photo advice from professional photographers in Canon Explorers of Light education program. This month's column is by Bob Davis, with great tips for shooting sharp photos of wildlife and birds in flight.

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