How to Take Great Animal Pictures

Are you an animal lover and like nothing better than taking photos of your favorite pets or venturing into the wild for great wildlife shots? Animal photography, or wildlife photography as it is also called, covers the gamut from domestic animals to animals in the wild. This article is filled with practical tips to help you get the most out of your animal photography.

While this article focuses mainly on wildlife photography, you can apply these tips to capture great photographs of your beloved pets. This way you'll be sure to get some great pictures of your dog or cat to enjoy. So, read on to learn how nature photographers get those fantastic images of wildlife...

The following tips cover photography basics for capturing great photos of wildlife. There are exceptions, however, but these basic tips will get you on your way to successful animal photography:

• Use natural lighting to your advantage
• Fill the frame with the subject
• Focus on the eyes
• Shoot from various angles
• Capture personality

You’re probably wondering how you can "capture personality" or "fill the frame” from a safe distance without a large lens and SLR. Even professional wildlife photographers don’t get up close and personal with the wildlife they photograph. Many of those awesome pictures you see of wolves, bears and other wild animals were taken at zoos or wildlife sanctuaries. Misleading? Cheating? Perhaps, but safety should come first for the photographer, along with less intrusion on the lives of animals in the wild.

It is great if you can find a wildlife sanctuary that offers special tours for photographers to get closer shots without a lot of people, but if you can’t there are ways the hobbyist with a compact camera can take professional looking wildlife photographs perfect for displaying.

Animal Photography Tips for Wildlife Sanctuaries and Zoos

1. Simplify the Composition: Use a wide aperture or Portrait mode to blur a distracting background. A photo editor like Photoshop can also be used to clean up or blur the background.
2. Go Natural: Don’t include cage bars, fences, signs or humans in your shot. Point the lens through a gap in the chain link fence, only if it is safe and not against the rules to do so, so the fence doesn’t show. Look for vantage points that avoid fence lines or other distractions. Remember, you can always use a good photo editor to blur what you can’t eliminate while photographing.
3. Fill the Frame: Use zoom (optical for best quality) or a telephoto lens for those close ups.
4. Use Sports mode or set shutter speed priority to around 1/250 to freeze movements.
5. Use Light and Weather for Best Effect: Overcast days are often best for animal photography. An overcast sky, if not too bright, will prevent glare from light color or watery backgrounds. Raise the ISO if the overcast is too dark and you have an SLR. You can get sharp pictures with your compact camera with the natural light of an overcast day. Animals do squint in the sunlight. Since the best place to focus is the eyes for an expressive photo, you want to avoid any squinting. If you don’t have the benefit of an overcast sky, have the animal’s back to the sun. In this case you will need to use fill flash (turn off automatic flash and set to "On") to prevent underexposure or a silhouette, and you will need to use a lens hood or wear a broad brimmed hat to prevent lens flare.
6. When Shooting through Glass: When a terrarium or aquarium critter catches your photographic eye, before you shoot you will need to turn on the flash and shoot from an angle. Your manual will tell you the safe distance needed to protect the animal’s eyes when using flash. Another option is to eliminate the flash by turning it off and gently pressing the lens up against the glass.
7. Plan your Visits for the Best Photo Ops: Everyone oohs and aahs when animal photography includes baby animals. There is nothing sweeter than a momma with her baby. Call sanctuaries and zoos to see when babies are being born, or check their websites as this information is often posted. Visit the zoo or sanctuary during feeding time. Try to avoid hours when most animals are in hiding. And finally, visit sanctuaries or zoos early in the day when animals are most active and not napping, especially when the weather is hot.
8. Use Context: While photography basics recommend filling the frame with your subject, sometimes what is surrounding your subject will add more interest and fun to your photograph. For example, a baby animal and a child checking each other out or a curious elephant stretching its trunk over a fence to the astonishment of a lone bystander.
9. Capture Expressions: Animal faces, whether your pet’s or a wild animal, are very expressive. What could be cuter than a kitten yawning or a momma monkey tenderly preening her baby? Just be ready with your camera for anything. The more you know about the animal you want to photograph, the better prepared you will be to capture great expressions and fun moments that will look amazing framed on your wall.

Animal photography is fun, and learning photography basics adds to your enjoyment. You will be amazed at the results of your next animal photo shoot when you apply these basic tips. Get started and have fun!