By: D. Robert & Lorri Franz
This past September a group of serious wildlife photographers, some professionals, some serious hobbyists, were photographing in Yellowstone National Park . We noticed that nearly all of us were shooting digital cameras, a dramatic change from just a few years ago. What has brought about such a revolutionary evolution in photography? We feel that shooting digitally has made photography fun again for many and in a lot of ways digital photography is the superior medium. Let's explore some of the advantages of digital cameras for wildlife photography.
Perhaps the single most important advantage of digital photography for a wildlife photographer is the ability to get good image quality at high ISO's. The ability to shoot at ISO 800 or 1600 or even at ISO 3200 allows you a half hour or more of effective photography at sunrise and sunset. This is exactly the time of day you need to be able to photograph wildlife since this is when they are most active. Not long after making the plunge into digital photography we were photographing the elk rut at Jasper National Park in Canada we discovered how good the digital cameras were at the higher ISO settings. One evening as we were walking back to the car we found a beautiful bull elk bugling at the edge of the forest. It was nearly dark and knew with film we wouldn't even have considered trying to make an image but we decided to test the abilities of our new equipment. With the Canon Eos10d attached to my EF 300mm F2.8IS lens supported by my carbon fiber Gitzo tripod and Foba ballhead I proceeded to take a series of images. My exposure at ISO 1600 was only 1/15 th of a second @ F2.8. Now that's dark! To our amazement most of the images turned out very good what I consider publishable without a doubt. The best 800 ISO film which would have had to be pushed 1 stop to achieve this exposure would have looked horrible in comparison. Our photography days in the field now begin earlier and end much later and this is fine since we are able to bringing home saleable images.
When I began in photography, over 25 years ago, an ISO 64 film was my fast film and an ISO 25 film was used for landscapes. With the latest digital SLR cameras we are very comfortable using ISO 200-400 as our standard ISO for shooting wildlife. This provides us with numerous advantages over film. Higher shutter speeds now allow us to stop action more effectively, and help to reduce the frequency of unsharp images due to camera shake. For example we can now stop the wing beats of a hummingbird in full daylight without flash by using ISO 400 our exposure is 1/3200 of a second @ F5.6 which is more than adequate to stop the wings. Image quality is much better than any ISO 400 speed slide film. We are also able to achieve greater depth of field when shooting tight portraits or animate landscapes of birds or wildlife by using a higher ISO while still maintaining an adequate shutter speed to insure the image doesn't suffer from camera shake.
The instant feedback you receive while shooting digitally is another tremendous advantage over film. For an amateur trying to improve his/ her craft the learning process can be greatly accelerated. Exposure, composition, and other technical aspects can all be instantly evaluated in the field before you forget what your intentions or vision was. The ability to consistently achieve correct exposure is one big factor that separates the neophytes from the pros. Today's digital SLR cameras are equipped with histogram displays of each image you take thus allowing you to immediately see if you have a good exposure. This feature goes a long way in helping amateurs learn exposure more quickly.
Do you save money shooting digital images rather than film? This is a question we hear all the time. For us the answer is definitely yes. We of course had to purchase the digital camera bodies which I might add are priced much higher than the equivalent film camera but we already had most of the lenses and computer equipment we needed for our business. We also had to invest in some specialized software. Despite that we feel for us and anyone else who photographed copiously expending large amounts of film annually the savings is significant. During a typical year we would shoot approximately 1500 rolls of film. We spent between $15,000 and $20,000 annually to purchase and process this much film. We are now reinvesting a portion of those savings upgrading to the newest digital cameras but for us we must always keep up with the latest technology in order to compete in the marketplace. A photographer just starting out may not realize the same savings.
Do we see any disadvantages of shooting digitally? In our opinion the answer to this question is yes. Effective workflow with digital files is still being learned by photographers, as well as software developers and photography clients. We spend a lot more time in front of the computer screen. We miss the excitement of viewing newly developed chromes on the lightbox. Editing on the lightbox is still much faster than on the computer. Many of our clients still prefer viewing pages of slides on the lightbox which they can go through quickly and pull out the image they want. In order to work with your digital files you need to be somewhat computer literate and willing to learn the basics of some important programs such as Adobe Photoshop.
The dominance of digital cameras seems to be a certainty. Nearly all photographers we meet out in the field shoot at least partially digital if not all. We believe film will be around for a long time but eventually more of a niche product than a mainstream. The prediction is before long film and processing costs are likely to rise as the demand for film decreases and the number of labs processing declines. This will make the cost advantages for digital cameras even greater in the future. So if you haven't made the switch to digital yet the time has come and you too will reap the rewards.
This past September a group of serious wildlife photographers, some professionals, some serious hobbyists, were photographing in Yellowstone National Park . We noticed that nearly all of us were shooting digital cameras, a dramatic change from just a few years ago. What has brought about such a revolutionary evolution in photography? We feel that shooting digitally has made photography fun again for many and in a lot of ways digital photography is the superior medium. Let's explore some of the advantages of digital cameras for wildlife photography.
When I began in photography, over 25 years ago, an ISO 64 film was my fast film and an ISO 25 film was used for landscapes. With the latest digital SLR cameras we are very comfortable using ISO 200-400 as our standard ISO for shooting wildlife. This provides us with numerous advantages over film. Higher shutter speeds now allow us to stop action more effectively, and help to reduce the frequency of unsharp images due to camera shake. For example we can now stop the wing beats of a hummingbird in full daylight without flash by using ISO 400 our exposure is 1/3200 of a second @ F5.6 which is more than adequate to stop the wings. Image quality is much better than any ISO 400 speed slide film. We are also able to achieve greater depth of field when shooting tight portraits or animate landscapes of birds or wildlife by using a higher ISO while still maintaining an adequate shutter speed to insure the image doesn't suffer from camera shake.
The instant feedback you receive while shooting digitally is another tremendous advantage over film. For an amateur trying to improve his/ her craft the learning process can be greatly accelerated. Exposure, composition, and other technical aspects can all be instantly evaluated in the field before you forget what your intentions or vision was. The ability to consistently achieve correct exposure is one big factor that separates the neophytes from the pros. Today's digital SLR cameras are equipped with histogram displays of each image you take thus allowing you to immediately see if you have a good exposure. This feature goes a long way in helping amateurs learn exposure more quickly.
Do we see any disadvantages of shooting digitally? In our opinion the answer to this question is yes. Effective workflow with digital files is still being learned by photographers, as well as software developers and photography clients. We spend a lot more time in front of the computer screen. We miss the excitement of viewing newly developed chromes on the lightbox. Editing on the lightbox is still much faster than on the computer. Many of our clients still prefer viewing pages of slides on the lightbox which they can go through quickly and pull out the image they want. In order to work with your digital files you need to be somewhat computer literate and willing to learn the basics of some important programs such as Adobe Photoshop.
The dominance of digital cameras seems to be a certainty. Nearly all photographers we meet out in the field shoot at least partially digital if not all. We believe film will be around for a long time but eventually more of a niche product than a mainstream. The prediction is before long film and processing costs are likely to rise as the demand for film decreases and the number of labs processing declines. This will make the cost advantages for digital cameras even greater in the future. So if you haven't made the switch to digital yet the time has come and you too will reap the rewards.