What general advices can you give to a novice wildlife photohunter? (1 Viewer)

[watcher201602]

I plan to spend a lot of time in the near future for mini distance (1-3 days per every several weeks) hikes in different regions of the planet with a purpose of photohunting wildlife (not only birds, but all possible species).

I have already experience of travelling over several tens countries and mini distance hiking in several mountain systems around the world. So, there is not much new in this activity for me. I encountered different forms of wildlife in my previous traves, but wildlife watching and photohunting never was a primary purpose earlier.

I will take the following gear for photohunting in addition to standard hiking gear:
a) Pentax XG-1 (cheapest superzoom camera with 52x zoom, 10 frames/sec high speed shooting, and acceptable quality of images - it is okay to break such camera or give it away in case of robbery);
b) neutral UV fiter, monopode, 2 high speed memory cards (one as reserved), 2 additional batteries (to allow about 700 shots per each hike), lense cleaning tools;
c) monocular with 12x zoom.

The purpose of photohunting is just getting fun. Without obtaining pro-level shots, athough if shots will be good it is great too.

I suppose the following animal search strategy will be followed by me:
a) walking during a day through all possible landscapes and watching/listening all around mysef;
b) sitting in ambush at late evening and early morning in proximity to water sources.


What general advices can you give me?
(Maybe you can advise some cheap, but very useful gear, or maybe some animal search strategy etc.)

 

[stuartvine]

I'd be tempted to take a pair of binoculars rather than a monocular, you may miss the field of view. Since you do exactly what we do there's not much advice I can give you on the hiking front. I do carry my camera on a quick release mount attached to my rucksack shoulder strap but it's a heavier rig than what you're going to be using. Other than that, have a great time, it sounds fun

 

[njlarsen]

I wonder about the filter. Most of the filters you can buy will significantly deteriorate the quality of the shot you can take.

Have you purchased the camera yet? otherwise, there might be mileage in looking for a good offer on yesterdays model from other producers before settling specifically on this one.

Niels

 

[watcher201602]

I wonder about the filter. Most of the filters you can buy will significantly deteriorate the quality of the shot you can take.

Here is a good article on the topic of using filters.
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/7333331953/should-you-use-a-uv-filter-on-your-lens

I came to the conclusion of using filters based on 3 criteria:
a) amateurish nature of my activity;
b) high risk to get a lot of water on lens (either from fog, or from the wind coming from the sea, or due to high humidity of the air);
c) mid-size risk to get particles of dirt/sand on lens.


In addition to all stuff listed above I also came to the conclusion to buy a long cylindrical lens hood for shooting against the sun and to avoid being noticed (due to reflection of the sun in the lens) by large predators like bears.

 

[wilko]

In addition to all stuff listed above I also came to the conclusion to buy a long cylindrical lens hood for shooting against the sun and to avoid being noticed (due to reflection of the sun in the lens) by large predators like bears.

This is my strategy too, works out fine. You only need to be careful in specific situation. For example when you take pictures besides a road where traffic is coming towards you. Little rocks and splashing water could damage your lens.