Snowy Plover / Photo by Steve Berardi
In the moment of excitement, it’s easy to forget about camera techniques and just start snapping photos from where you’re standing. But, if you want an intimate, sharp, and isolated portrait of any wildlife subject, you’re gonna have to get down to their eye level to snap the photo, and here are at least three reasons why:
#1 – It makes the image more intimate
A lot of wildlife you encounter will be shorter than you, so you’ll usually be looking down on it. This creates a feeling of conquer or superiority in the image.
Getting down to eye level of the subject helps put you in their world, and get their perspective on things. Suddenly things don’t look so small anymore, do they?
#2 – It makes the image sharper
When you photograph wildlife at eye level, you also help position your camera so the sensor is parallel to the most important plane of your subject (the eyes and as much of the body as possible).
This helps put all important parts of your subject at the same distance from your sensor, so all those parts will be in sharp focus.
In every photo, there is really only one plane of complete sharpness, so choosing this plane wisely and positioning your camera’s sensor so it’s parallel to this plane is critical to getting sharp photos of wildlife (or wildflowers, butterflies, dragonflies, etc).
#3 – It creates a better background
When you’re photographing wildlife from above, the background will usually be the ground or plants immediately behind the subject. This makes it hard to get that nice out of focus background because it’s just too close to the subject.
But, when you get down to eye level, the background will usually be something far away, making it much easier to get a good blurred, out of focus background (i.e. bokeh).
Be prepared to get dirty!
Of course, getting down to eye level isn’t always easy: sometimes it means you’ll have to take the photo while lying down on the ground! Don’t worry, it’s just a little dirt! And, it’s the only way to get intimate, sharp, and isolated portraits of wildlife.
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About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, computer scientist, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains or the Mojave Desert, both located in the beautiful state of California.
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great tips, thanks for sharing
Yep, great advice. This also works underwater for fish & sealife. If you shoot slightly upward you even get a bit of surface in there to make an interesting background.
Ah, yes, the getting dirty factor, no doubt the biggest reason to not get quite at eye level of a wildlife subject. I do think photographing from a lying on my stomach position is very comfortable though, but I am hesitant about getting totally filthy sometimes if I wasn’t exactly dressed for and planning on making a wildlife shot.
The info on only one plane of complete sharpness is really informative and I will keep that in mind on my next photo excursion.
It’s a little more difficult when the subject is a giraffe (sorry I couldn’t resist that one).
This is absolutely true — I know it wasn’t a good day for photographing shorebirds if I make it back to the car without about 3 pounds of sand or mud in my pockets and pants! And really interesting observation about the focal plane and subject sharpness, I hadn’t connected that with low-angle photography before. Beautiful shot of the snowy plover as well!
Nice shot of the Snowy Plover, a threatened species on the Pacific Coast.
Thanks for sharing the great photography tips! I never thought about the focal plane in relation to being eye height. I will concentrate more on this in the future!
Thanks all for your nice comments!
@Jason – I agree, lying on your stomach isn’t too bad, although it becomes a problem when you want the camera somewhere between you lying down and kneeling.. which means some awkward positions..
@Henk – lol, good point. I guess for giraffes you gotta climb up a tree to get the photo?
@Larry – yeah, it’s unfortunate california has so few undisturbed beaches left, making it really hard for the plovers to breed and get enough food (they’re constantly being scared away by humans). When I took this photo, I made certain never to approach them directly and instead let them come close to me, if they felt like it. It worked well, and most importantly: I didn’t scare them.
Henk
You forgot about the eye level shot of the sleeping Lion.
Steve thanks a very good article. Shem Campion showed on his blog how beautiful an elephant’s eyes can be http://www.shemimages-blog.com/2009/11/eye-of-elephant.html
Good photo and good points.
As a footnote, consider taking a few shots from the standing position before lowering oneself to eye-level. Movement, at least for me, frequently frightens the subject to take flight, so this “backup” is some solace for missing the shot altogether.
@Rick – Great point! I need to start doing that more often.. those photos from above are also sometimes helpful for identifying the bird/dragonfly/etc later.