Pets and Wildlife

Posted by Phil Surbey on 28 April 2011 at 3:28 pm

Hi everyone, congratulations to James Moore for winning April’s Go Urban Challenge. Don’t forget this month’s Pets and Wildlife Photo Challenge winner will be announced at the start of June, so make sure you submit your entry before the closing date of 30th June to be in with a chance of winning!

The sun is starting to shine and it seems spring is at last in the air! So now is a great time to get out your Lumix and start shooting in the great outdoors.

For this month’s article, I have chosen to look at the category of pets and wildlife photography, to give you some ideas and tips for making the most of your camera as well as the change in the weather.

I personally do not have any pets, though – so I asked a few friends to let me shoot some photos of their four-legged friends. To get the ball rolling, I decided to start with a Schnauzer puppy I had been offered to look after and photograph.

The day I’d planned for the shoot, it turned out to be pouring with rain – however, a good photographer has to be prepared for the unexpected! So, I opted to bring the puppy into the studio and see if I could get some great photos of him that way. I chose a black background, as I wanted this to blend tonally with the colours of his coat – but at the same time it was important to ensure my subject did not merge into the setting.

All the shots are taken with my Lumix G2 set to its ‘Manual’ mode, using studio flash lighting.

Shot selection 1 – Schnauzer Puppy

When shooting animals, the first trick is to always try to get down to their eye level. That way, you will get more interest from your chosen subject. For this type of shot, it’s good to have a squeaky toy at hand to attract the puppy’s attention in whatever direction you want for each photograph. It came in very handy with the Schnauzer in the studio, where I shot him standing and also in a basket on a contrasting white towel.

Images set to RAW
45mm Macro Elmarit lens
Aperture set at f 5.0
Shutter Speed: 100th sec
ISO 100
White Balance: Flash

Shot selection 2 - Labrador

For my second shoot, I was determined to get outdoors, so I waited for a window of the expected good weather. I had arranged for a mate and his Labrador to join me on a late afternoon and into the early evening. For shots like these, you need a well-trained animal, but also a lot of patience. To make the single shots of the Labrador more graphic, I decided to light them with a couple of battery-powered flash heads. Using these as the main light sources enabled me to underexpose the daylight and achieve the series of shots you see here with an ‘HDR’ (high dynamic range) appearance.

Lumix G2 again set to RAW images
45mm Macro Elmarit lens
Aperture set at f 16
Shutter Speed: 160th sec
ISO 100
White Balance: Daylight Cloudy

Shot selection 3 – Dogs with their Master

After I had taken the shots of the well-behaved Lab, I decided to get some shots of my friends’ two dogs together, as he had brought along his Rottweiler as well.

I positioned my friend and his two pets on the crest of a small rise so that they were exposed, to make them slightly silhouetted against the sky. I needed a fast shutter speed to capture the darker dog jumping up to his master, so I set the camera to a high ISO. This enabled me to then set the shutter speed to 2000th of a second, which effectively froze the action.

Images set to RAW
45-200mm lens
Aperture at f 5.6
Shutter Speed: 2000th sec
ISO 400
White Balance: Daylight Cloudy

Shot selection 4 – Reptiles

After shooting the dogs with supplementary lighting (my flash heads) – which may not be available to everyone – I decided that the next set of pictures should be taken solely using the Lumix G2′s own built-in flash and nothing else. One of my oldest colleagues owns a reptile centre, so I descended on him and got his OK to photograph some of his cold-blooded friends inside the shop.

I used the camera handheld mostly, set to its ‘IA’ (intelligent auto) mode, and I shot some images through the sides of the animals’ enclosures. Whenever you do this, you need to make sure the glass is spotless, with no marks or smears. Also, always have your lens in contact with the glass surface, as that way you can cut out unwanted reflections.

When shooting handheld, it’s vitally important to avoid camera shake – so if the lens isn’t hard against a pane of glass, simply brace your elbows against your chest and hold your breath while you release the shutter! As these shots were taken in a mixture of very different lighting conditions, I intentionally let the camera work out its own colour levels using Auto White Balance. As I was again shooting images in the RAW mode, I knew I could rebalance them to my personal choice later on.

Pets and Wildlife Photography - Reptiles

Lastly, I have also included some other animal shots that I’ve taken prior to working on the Lumix Lifestyle site, including pet cats and a wild chaffinch on a window ledge.