Wildlife Photography How To

(Editor’s Note: Exploring Light is a monthly Shutterbug column featuring tips, tricks, and photo advice from professional photographers in Canon Explorers of Light education program. This month's column is by Bob Davis, with great tips for shooting sharp photos of wildlife and birds in flight.

Not long ago we featured a very popular tutorial, explaining the importance of choosing the proper focal point if precise focus is your goal. Today‘s follow-up episode, with another instructor, provides more important tips you won’t want to miss.

One of the few mistakes that can totally ruin a photo is failing to achieve precise focus on the primary subject in a scene. There are a variety of camera settings and shooting techniques for increasing your odds of success, and today we’re going to concentrate on one of the most helpful.

Most of my columns for this website concern the ideas and purposes behind the photographs I take. I always include information about the technology used to achieve the photos, which could be as basic as the f/stop chosen to direct your attention, or the use of a ND filter to make a long exposure possible. That approach is not incidental or coincidental; the stories are planned along those lines because my ideas come first, and technology’s purpose is to support those ideas.

Whether you’re an accomplished wildlife shooter or you just enjoy photographing birds in the backyard, it’s likely you pop off dozens of images when an interesting subject appears. If so, the video below will be a big help.

Back-button focus is a popular technique among experienced wildlife, sports, and nature photographers. The tutorial below demystifies this powerful focusing method and explains how to use it for faster, more precise results.