Nature Photography Tips
Woodland – by Nature Photography Tips
The woodlands environment is great for photography, with a huge variety of plant
and animal life, but be prepared for a range of
light levels
and restricted views.
Woodland provides opportunities for nature photography as trees create a numerous
different habitats, at various heights, yet all in one place. At the top, where
most of the leaves grow to trap sunlight, is a flimsy lattice of thin branches;
lower down, the plain, trunks of the trees provide another food source. Near to
the ground, where less light filters down, bushes and shrubs grow, while on the
woodland floor, undergrowth mingles with all the litter that fails down from the
higher levels.
Composing woodland photography
Because of these different layers, each with its own characteristics, there is less
direct competition for food among the animals than there is in a simpler habitat
such as grassland. For all but close-up views, where the surroundings are less obvious,
composing woodland photographs generally involves finding clear viewpoints and simplifying
the image. The branches, trunks and leaves create patterns which can be confusing
and get in the way of middle-distance shots. If you’re stalking an animal such as
a deer, tree trunks and undergrowth will help conceal you, but they can also intrude
on the picture and careful side-stepping may be necessary for a clear view. In fact,
clear views of anything are at a premium in woodland—to improve your chances, look
for clearings, glades, ponds, and the banks of rivers and streams, as well as weather
conditions that separate the scene into zones, such as mist and fog. Hilly areas
usually offer the most choice of viewpoints.
Getting the correct exposure
In an open forest, trees in the distance make depth of field an issue if you are
using a
long-focus lens. Even at a small aperture it may be impossible to get everything
sharp. A tripod helps for this kind of landscape. In photographing animals, however,
shallow depth of field from a wide aperture actually helps by blurring foreground
and middle- ground vegetation. There are so many different small habitats in temperate
woodland that it’s difficult to predict general lighting conditions, but when the
trees are in leaf, the shade deep inside most forests is deep. This is a lighting
problem if you are stalking active animals, and calls for a tripod for most other
subjects—or a very high sensitivity setting. A tall, well-established beech wood,
for example, lets so little light reach the ground that even on a sunny day exposures
of around 1/50 sec at f2.8 are likely at ISO 100.
Lighting your subject
When the canopy is thin and sunlight does break through, contrast is likely to be
very high in summer. Shafts of sunlight are interesting when they pick out just
the right subject a small clump of bluebells, for instance, or a deer emerging from
a thicket-but when it simply dapples the scene, it adds to the visual confusion
of a habitat that is already quite complex. The range of brightness in these conditions
can be as high as 6 f-stops. Small-scale subjects like flowers can be shaded to
make the lighting more even, but with overall views it may be better to wait until
late afternoon or early next morning when the low angle of the sun picks out the
sides of tree trunks. Cloudy-bright weather and hazy sunlight are the easiest working
conditions.
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