You will have your best moments for safari photography during the morning hours and evening before dusk. Over this period most animals are wandering in search of food. Morning and evening hours are also calm and the animals are quite relaxed to easily approach for a close-range photo. Sometimes you may as well go for another round of game drives after nightfall to check for nocturnal animals especially the big cats. During these prime hours you will have to deal with diminished light or even a worse situation in the case of night game drives where you must rely on light from the moon and the stars. Whereas on ordinally circumstances you will just use the camera flash, in wildlife photography flash is discouraged as it may cause distress on your subject or even fleeing. You will therefore have to apply several techniques to manage the little natural light available. In this post we shall discuss some of these mechanisms.
# Choose the best camera
The first step of dealing with the low light situation starts at getting the right camera for the job. Firstly, your camera should have a large crop sensor that’s why we recommend a full frame DSLR canon or Nikon camera. In addition, your camera should have a good image stabilizer to reduce the risk of getting blurry images.
# Lens choice
Your lens selection will also have a great impact on your low light capability. The most important consideration is going for the wide aperture lenses. A wide aperture lens is able to quickly gather enough light to luminate the object. We recommend a f/2.8 l aperture size lens. Where possible also consider a lens that has good on-lens stabilization which improves the sharpness of the image.
# Zoom out when using zoomable lenses
The aperture in zoomable lenses widens as you zoom out. For better results in low light conditions we recommend you zoom out a little.
# Increase camera ISO setting
If your aperture size didn’t yield the desired result is the next step is to increasing your ISO setting. This will increase the sensitivity of your camera image to the light. To get the best fitting ISO range start by setting your camera to the maximum and readjust slowly as you take photos to test the efficiency. Ensure the setting you choose produces less image noise.
# Lower the shutter speed
You should also consider lowering the shutter speed. This will give your camera more time to gather enough light for your image. Agreeably, you will require a high shutter speed to get quality images of moving subjects. This might not work out in low light conditions as it leads to underexposure which reduce the sharpness of your image. For better results we recommend that you use a manageable low shutter speed (not slower than 1/ your lens focal length i.e 1/500 sec for a 500 mm lens. We also recommend that you adopt other mechanism as detailed in the next point to improve the sharpness of your image with low shutter speed.
# Avoid shaking, follow the motion.
You have to minimize any unnecessary movement of your arm when taking the shot. Ensure your arms are steadily anchored in your bean bag while on a game drive. When you are going for walking safaris consider carrying along your tripod or monopod. To freeze a bird in flight mode or an animal in motion. Keep moving your camera on the direction of the movement. Even though this might not always give a perfectly sharp image you will at least minimize the blurriness.
# Utilize available light
There would never be time when there is completely no source of light. For best outcomes ensure that the object you are photographing is facing the light source. During night game drives and there is moon ensure you take a shot when your subject is positioned in an open space not on a shadow.
# Turn off Autofocus
Whereas this help you save time during daytime photo shoots. Automatic focus may not work well in lowlight conditions especially at night when there is no uniformity in light distribution on the subject. Just adjust to manual for better results.
# Keep the burst mode on/ take repeated shots.
Making multiple shots at a go increases your chances of getting a sharper image. Importantly, if you are taking a closeup shot and you don’t want to scare away your subject with the shutter sound, you can turn off the burst mode and at least 3 extra shots before leaving. At no given time should it be a single shot!
# Get as closer as possible, try to keep the eye focus.
Different animals have different flight distance. To get the best photo ensure you are at the closest point where you can capture the best photo without causing discomfort on your subject. Close range images of the big cat gazed towards the direction of the camera in their characteristic glowing eyes gives some of the most appealing night images.
Point to note
Safari photography is more of an interaction between the photographer, the wilderness and all that it holds. When going for a low light photography you may not always get the quality pictures captured under the noon sun. This especially when you have to go for night drives. However, you ought to appreciate the effort and enjoy the moment while it last.
