"Animals in Action"

How do you photograph animals in movement? This will be the question that will be answered within this section. We will be covering Knowing your habitats, Be on site before the sun rises, Shoot first, edit later, and Build a stage to capture action.

KNOW YOUR HABITATS: Some of the best places to find natural wildlife would be at your local park or nearby national park. At some of the national parks and refuges you can hop on a guided tour where you will have a better chance of seeing wildlife. Each season has its time for certain animals to be active. Spring is a great time to photograph reproductive behaviors and the growing up of the young ones. Fall is a time to photograph birds and mammals. The winter time is mostly a time of relaxation and photographing migratory birds. Finally, the summer time is when animals are active again so this is a great time to be photographing.

BE ON SITE BEFORE THE SUN RISES: When you are filming birds this is when this rule comes into play. The best time to photograph birds in action in a marsh or woodland area would be right when the sun comes up. The birds tend to fly in when sun is rising and then it will get extremely quite by 9 am. By noon they will have disappeared and come back again in the early morning. So basically, if you are looking to photograph birds in a pond you might want to consider getting up early.

SHOOT FIRST, EDIT LATER: This is one thing to keep in mind when photographing. Some people prefer to edit on the job however, this might cause some problems one of them being you could miss an important pose. Especially when you are waiting all day to get that one pose and you miss it because you are editing the picture before. So, if you just keep taking picture after picture and not even look at them until you are done shooting you will end up getting a lot more better pictures than if you edit on the spot.

BUILD A STAGE TO CAPTURE ACTION: When you are photographing I would imagine that you want to get the best shot possible. In order to do that you should focus accurately on the subject. Next of all, the subject should be framed accordingly with no closed eyes. The last bit of tip would be, the setting or background should be simple with no telephone poles behind the subject.

For more information on "Animal in Action", I would highly suggest reading the book, " Nature Photography" written by, Tim Fitzharris.