When you use a main lens for wildlife pictures, the most important drawback is which you could’t zoom out to get the complete animal within the body once you’re too shut. However is there an answer to this drawback that doesn’t contain utilizing a unique lens? One chance is to make use of panoramas!
Panoramas?
You most likely assume I’m joking. Certainly, more often than not, animals are deft and wily creatures whose essential goal is to forestall wildlife photographers from getting good pictures. However different instances, some animals will stand very nonetheless.
Maybe that’s on account of their eager intuition to stay unnoticed within the presence of a fierce predator. Or perhaps they’re superior Zen meditators. However regardless of the motive, animals aren’t all the time shifting round.
Let’s say you’re in such a scenario with a comparatively nonetheless animal, and you’ve got the right composition in thoughts. Sadly, you may’t zoom out as a result of you may have a main lens. Furthermore, you may’t transfer backward, as a result of likelihood is, you’re going to scare it away. Throughout such instances, you would possibly be capable of get a two and even three-shot panorama of an animal.
The concept is to first envision your composition, and plan in your head whether or not you’ll do a horizontal or vertical panorama. Transfer your digital camera to the beginning place and wait till the animal is sitting very nonetheless. Herons, owls, and bigger birds could be an excellent begin. Cautious mammals usually cease for a number of seconds, too.
Then, take your first shot, and shortly transfer to take the second, hoping the animal doesn’t transfer. When you have a tripod head like a video fluid head or gimbal head, or you may have a panoramic base in your ballhead, it’s even simpler. If the animal is simply sitting there for some time, I’d suggest executing the entire process just a few instances in case you get some motion.
A fair higher choice, whether it is attainable, is to take one photograph in the course of the panorama that features the complete animal. The composition of this photograph will really feel very cramped, however you may take further pictures on both aspect, after which mix them right into a panorama with a extra comfy composition. With this method, you may even make a panorama of a hen in flight! Though the primary photograph would wish to have 100% of the hen within the body.
More often than not, two or three pictures must be sufficient to get a sufficiently wider composition. With three pictures, you simply can mimic a focal size that’s 0.67x wider than your present focal size (corresponding to utilizing a 300mm lens to match the composition of a 200mm lens). When there’s a likelihood of motion, I follow not more than two pictures of the topic, plus nevertheless many surrounding pictures it takes to get the appropriate composition.
By way of post-processing, the concept is to merge your panorama first after which edit it second. Plenty of software program like Lightroom has panorama merging inbuilt, though I exploit Darktable, which doesn’t. So, I first make the panorama right into a TIFF file individually, after which edit it subsequent.
Utilizing my 20-megapixel Nikon D500, I usually get 30-35 megapixel recordsdata with simply two pictures. Naturally, when you use a higher-resolution sensor, you’ll get much more decision. That stated, I don’t suggest this system as a strategy to improve element. That may be a pleasant aspect impact if all the things goes proper, however largely, it’s a last-ditch strategy to salvage a wildlife photograph in case your topic will get too shut.
Lastly, I wish to level out that some animals have elements that transfer greater than others. For instance, some perched birds solely transfer their heads whereas retaining the remainder of their our bodies fairly nonetheless. In that case, it may be straightforward to make the panorama so long as you take note of which elements are shifting. Embody all of the shifting elements in a single photograph, and all of the stationary elements will be captured in separate pictures.
Conclusion
I didn’t assume making panoramas would work as a hen photographer till I attempted it. In sure instances the place I didn’t have the choice to maneuver again, it’s really labored for me far more usually than I anticipated, so it’s not just a few theoretical method. With the appropriate species, I imagine most individuals can get it to work no less than half the time.
I’ve solely simply began to discover the concept, however I feel it might be nice to experiment with three or 4 shot panoramas too, only for enjoyable. What do you assume? I counsel giving it a attempt when you shoot with a main lens and get caught too near your topic. Panoramas should not only for panorama photographers!