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Your camera isn't the problem - Here's what is · Wildlife and Adventure Photography

• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello again and welcome to another podcast.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Graham Elliott from uh Graham Elliott Photography, and I want to build on what I spoke about last week.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen to that podcast, where I went through uh seven reasons why your photographs might not be sharp.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh this week I'm gonna look at why the camera isn't the problem, and um let me tell you more.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: This really steps back a couple of steps, and I'm looking at the situation where you pick up your camera, you pointed at something really interesting, and then you start wondering uh okay, what shutter speed should I use?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what aperture, oh, and what about my ISO?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh which autofocus mode am I in?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And should I be in aperture priority, shutter speed priority?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, maybe I should be manual.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly getting that photograph seems a lot more complicated than it really needs to be, and frankly, it shouldn't be that complicated.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna suggest to you that it may be you're asking the wrong question.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of asking what settings you should use, what I suggest you ask first is what do I want this photograph to look like?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, in this uh podcast, what I'm gonna do is look at five of the most important decisions you can make before you press the shutter button, and really how understanding those decisions can make photography much, much simpler.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And um this is really where taking a course comes in.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because honestly, if you if you're if if this is the process you're going through, I recommend you probably have a a course to just master some some principles at least.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the starting point here is to start with the end in mind.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, what what do you want to produce?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to be the final outcome?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are you trying to achieve?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to freeze movement?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and if that's the case, then shutter speed becomes the most important thing that you need to set.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you want everything sharp?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, in that case, probably aperture and depth of field take on a more significant role.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: What about if you want the background blurred?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, that's a function of aperture, focal length, and the distance between you and the subject.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: All of those factors will influence how blurred or not the background is.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do you deliberately want to show movement?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if you were listening last time, I spoke about shooting um aircraft, doing uh a fast pass over a runway or racing cars, that kind of thing.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: In those instances, I definitely want movement in that image.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's going to again make shutter speed probably the most important setting that you are um setting up on the camera.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So these are creative decisions that you are making.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: The important thing to remember here is that the camera is the tool, and the settings you're using fine-tune the tool or adjust the tool to achieve the photographic outcome that you're looking for.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at um each of these in terms.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, shutter speed.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit more than fast freeze movement.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when you are looking at a fast shutter speed, this is a creative decision.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So fast shutter speed is useful when you want to freeze wildlife.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've seen any of my uh webinars or if you've uh been on any of the courses, I'll typically show a picture of a humpback whale in mid-air, full breach.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to freeze that because I want to see individual water droplets.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that is a fast shutter speed.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Again, if you're a sports photographer as well as, or instead of a wildlife photographer, then the chances are you want to freeze certain moments.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Also, though, you might want movement in there, so it depends on what you want as an outcome.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: If it's if you're photographing children, then maybe you want to freeze the uh whatever's going on there.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it might be far shutter speed.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to capture action, just hold that moment.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, a cheetah running down a prey um animal, then that might be a moment where you absolutely want to freeze everything.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: That that millisecond, microsecond, you just want to absolutely nail it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, those are the sort of considerations that would lead you towards setting a faster shutter speed.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, what's going to make you look or lean more towards a slower shutter speed?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, movement blur, it's one I've already mentioned with aircraft and um uh racing vehicles, but also with wildlife, you might want some movement in the image.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes an image of a blurry animal chasing another one that has a sensation of speed to it.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's more of a suggestion to it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: You there's more of an emotion, emotional connection with that image than something that was frozen pin sharp.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Movement blur is definitely something to consider.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, flowing water, that again is a slower shutter speed, depending on what kind of effect you're going for there.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Light trails, definitely a slow shutter speed.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can get some great effects by just slowing everything down, or having intentional motion.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you might want some movement in the image or some motion blur from the subject.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, in last week's episode, we looked at shutter speed as one of the reasons photographs aren't sharp, but shutter speed isn't simply there to prevent mistakes.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, the real question to ask here is do I want to freeze movement or do I want to show movement?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that will tell you what sort of shutter speed you need to be uh using.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that shutter speed, the next decision to look at is what aperture you want to use.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, the the simple way of looking at this is a big aperture, say f 2.8, lets in more light.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it does, but this isn't really what's most useful when you are using aperture as a creative tool.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Aperture controls how much of the scene appears to be sharp, it determines depth of field.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So a shallow depth of field is where you're focused on your subject, you have a short distance in front of the subject, so between the subject and you that stays in focus, and a slightly longer distance behind the subject that stays in focus.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But everything outside of that area is out of focus.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I tend to think of this as my focus box, so it's uh it's like visualizing a box around my focal point where I know everything is in focus.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: A greater depth of field, which you set with um a larger aperture number, so smaller physical aperture, but a larger number like F18, F22, that sort of thing, that gives you a much greater depth of field.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that focus box becomes much longer in terms of its distance away from you.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It gets much, much longer.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Depth of field, and then what you're primarily doing with aperture is isolating your subject, or you're keeping it within a group, or you're showing it in its environments.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: All of those would require a different aperture setting, a different depth of field.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: You might be keeping a group sharp, you might be shooting a landscape, or you might be doing a wildlife portrait.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, landscape you'd have a large depth of field because presumably you want pretty much everything in focus.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're doing a wildlife portrait, you'd be generally running with a much smaller depth of field because you really just want the animal's face in focus and everything else out of focus to one extent or another.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about a shallow depth of field being automatically better, it's really about what do you want to produce in the photograph?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: What suits the photograph, the outcome that you're trying to produce.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: The key question you want to ask here when you're trying to determine what aperture to use is how much of the photograph do I want to appear sharp?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's shutter speed and aperture.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: We then come on to ISO.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, um the general general conversation around ISO is to keep ISO as low as possible, but there's a bit more to it than that.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, with a higher ISO, you can use that to achieve a faster shutter speed where the ambient light doesn't permit it, or the just the lens you're using is a little bit more limited.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a particularly fast lens, so you need a higher ISO in order to achieve usable, workable shutter speeds.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It can allow you to use a smaller aperture so there's less light coming in, so you can compensate by pushing up the uh the gain on the uh sensor, or you're exposing in low light.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, a higher ISO can allow you to get the result you're aiming for.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the downside is that you do see more noise because what turning the ISO up does, it doesn't make the sensor more sensitive.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's um a misunderstanding about what it's actually doing.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: It basically amplifies the signal that it has or what the set sensor has captured, and what the sensor has captured comprises signal, which is the photograph that you want, and noise, which is the background noise produced by the electronics, which is picked up by the um uh by the sensor.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Where you can where that works best is if your camera has a good signal-to-noise ratio.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the signal really does stand apart from the noise, but not all cameras have that.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that will vary from camera to camera.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: The truth of it is that these days, if you're using a pretty modern camera, unless you're really running at the extremes, noise is not that noticeable in most images.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Where it is more obvious is where you have a solid area of one color or one tone, because then the noise which shows us sort of a pixelation or little pixels, uh, is much more obvious.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also much more obvious if you digitally zoom the image, if you zoom into the image, then it becomes much more obvious.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the downside of pushing the ISO up is it can influence the um the quality of the uh the image when you certainly when you expand it, and potentially you could lose some fine detail.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But ISO isn't the enemy, it's just that it's about using it at the right level to achieve the result you want while minimizing the um trade-offs that you have to deal with in order to do that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, how much image quality compromise are you prepared to accept in order to get the photograph you want?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really the question, the or the relevant question around ISO.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, decision four is um autofocus.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: This comes back again to what actually needs to be in focus.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a stationary subject, that's quite easy to focus on because it's not moving.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if however you've got a moving subject, which way is it moving?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it moving from left to right, right to left, in which case the distance between you, the focal length, stays uh focal distance I should say, stays pretty much the same, or is it moving towards you or away from you?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: In which case some of the AI tracking uh modes might help you in those instances, but you do need to make sure that you are focused on the correct thing.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is where I like to use a single uh point of focus when I'm setting up the autofocus because it minimizes the chances of the camera focusing on, say, a blade of grass or a branch that's just got between me and the subject.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It means I can isolate the subject and then stay with it without having to or without having to change the the focus very often.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And also, this is where I'll tend to use things like um back button focus.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm separating the focusing function from the metering function and from the actual uh process of pressing the shutter button and taking the photograph.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, and again, if you've got um AI um capability on your camera, so it can uh track the subject, it can detect eyes, those sort of things uh can be very useful, but you do need to understand them, you do need to practice them.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if you're photographing an elephant that's standing still, it's not that big of a challenge when you're focusing, just focus on an eye.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I always go for the eye nearest to me, and that's pretty straightforward.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're photographing a bird in flight, that's different, particularly if there are foreground and background objects that the camera could easily pick up as what as thinking that's what you intend to uh focus on.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is about understanding what's available on the system that you're using, and it's really important that the more sophisticated your autofocus becomes, the more important it is that you understand what you're asking it to do.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, the question to be asking here is not what is my subject, but how is it moving?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that then leads you to which autofocus settings you need to be using.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've got the exposure mode.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the ones that you are gonna come across, there are others, but the the ones you're most likely to be choosing between are aperture priority, shutter speed priority, manual, and then auto.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: The key thing here is that these automations mean that the camera is performing certain functions for you, and you also have the choice to set certain functions to, and the difference between them is really how much automation the camera is delivering.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: So in auto, the camera is setting up everything to do with the exposure triangle, so it's setting up shutter speed, it's setting up aperture, it's setting up ISO.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's all fine, but I've just talked through what shutter speed, aperture, and ISO give you.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the camera doesn't know what depth of field you want, it doesn't know what your subject is, it doesn't know what the final image is you're trying to produce.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it will just go to some factory set defaults, which give a good exposure, but that might create a an image that is nothing like what you actually want to produce.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Full automation isn't what I recommend because you might as well just you're taking snapshots, you're not you're not doing anything really creative other than some level of composition.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, you've got manual where you're setting up absolutely everything, but it's not really practical to do that in a situation where things start happening quickly, like an elephant, uh, an elephant, an animal goes after, say a cheetah goes after an impaler, it just launches itself at an impaler, then that's going to happen really quickly, and you need to be on that, and you need to have your settings pretty much where they need to be.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty much impossible to do that using manual unless you guess, pre-guess everything correctly.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: The likelihood is you're either looking at aperture priority where you set the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed to get a correct exposure, or you're using shutter speed priority where you set the shutter speed because you've decided movement is more important, and the camera sets the aperture and therefore the depth of field.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the modes that I tend to use.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what I will do is also just make sure that the setting that the camera is automating, that I've let the camera automate.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, in aperture priority, where I'm most interested in depth of field, I will just check to make sure that the shutter speed that the camera is producing is in the ballpark of where I need it to be.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not where I want it, I'll compensate by using ISO adjustment to get that shutter speed there.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: But in the moment, I just want the camera getting the correct shutter speed because I'm really interested in depth of field, and clearly you can flip that around if um shutter speed priority is what's most important.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, the thing to remember is that aperture priority, shutter speed priority allow you to focus on really composition and capturing what's going on.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if if it is primarily composition and subject that you're interested in, then you probably want aperture priority.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: If it's shutter speed is the critical thing, and you really want to freeze the action, then it comes back to shutter speed priority being the most appropriate setting to be running with.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are definitely occasions where manual can be more appropriate, but I don't want to overcomplicate this, so I'm gonna leave that one there.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, um what's the missing decision?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's about the light.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: The question, the big question to ask is what's the light doing?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: What's the direction of it?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's the quality?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: How much contrast is there?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how is the background treated?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is it easy to see?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Do you even have backlights?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Are you dealing with shadows, highlights?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Are you dealing with silhouettes?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And how are the colours looking?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, last week I spoke about perceived sharpness as opposed to technical sharpness.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: The contrast between your subject and the background can definitely influence how sharp that final image appears.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this is another reason why you can't just rely on a set of camera settings and assume that that's going to give you a particular result.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is why, although I do share camera settings in some of the webinars I do.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I generally don't bother because I don't think it's that relevant, to be honest, other than the broad brush suggestions I I've given you.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you do need to be working with whatever light situation you have to get that final result that you are um trying to produce.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: The decision making process, just to uh recap, before you press the shutter button, ask what's your subject?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: What's the subject doing?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to show?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to keep sharp?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to blur?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: How much movement do you want to freeze or to show?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what's the light doing?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And once you've answered those questions, that's when you start thinking about the settings, because those will pretty much tell you more or less where you need to be on your camera settings.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: The final thought I'd like to um leave you with is essentially don't buy a lot of gear, don't buy new gear.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is one of the reasons why I think buying more photography equipment it it tends, it doesn't um make you a better photographer because a better photographer is someone who understands these concepts, they understand what the camera represents as a tool in terms of creating a particular outcome, uh, where it's really capable and also where the limitations are.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact is you can own the most sophisticated camera that's around, but if you don't understand the decisions you're making, the camera just gives you more buttons to press, it gives you more menus.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it doesn't deliver anything creatively.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to do that part yourself.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: So understanding photography gives you something much more valuable.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the ability to make deliberate decisions, creative decisions, and create the outcome that you have in mind when you see that scene.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe capture that feeling because the most powerful images are the ones that have an emotional connection.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the feeling that you have when you're looking at that scene and when you're lifting your camera up?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to suggest that um you take a look at.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've got I've got some things that will help you.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I've got a short uh one-page guide, but essentially it's what I've just spoken about.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a decision-making guide.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to learn more, I do recommend you take a look at my courses because they are built from an assumption of zero knowledge, so they cover all of the really fundamental building blocks that everything else everything else sits on.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that really is something that I if if you are perhaps in doubt about what you're doing or you're not confident you're not sure that you you consider that.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do want to develop this understanding, that this basic understanding of how to achieve certain results using the camera you have, rather than just trying to memorize a bunch of settings and they probably won't work for you.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's really what the photography courses are designed to help you to do.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: So um I'll give you all of that, and um that is it for this week.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I hope you found that useful.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm going to talk about next week are 10 photography mistakes that could well be holding you back.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: So enjoy your photography this week.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll be back on Friday.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that's it from me.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.