Tips?

[FRENZEL]

Does anyone haver any advise or tips for outdoor and wildlife shots? Just some generalizations to make my pictures more interesting or the when how and why on a few techniques. Anything is greatly appreciated as I am newnew. FYI A good amount of my pics will involve water. Just wanna get a few better ones the next couple days that I can post for some critical advice.

 

[Big Mike]

That's a pretty broad topic...

A great tip is to use a tripod. Not always easy when shooting wildlife, but when shooting landscape shots, there is no reason you shouldn't use a tripod. Further to that, don't touch the camera when you fire it, use a remote or the self timer.

When shooting water (any just about anything outdoors) I recommend using a circular polarizing filter. By rotating the filter, you can often reduce or eliminate the reflections off the surface of the water. Sometimes you want the reflections and sometimes you don't, but without the filter, you don't have that option.

Here is an example where I wanted the reflection

And here is one where I wanted to see to the bottom of the water. I still have some reflections, but I hope this illustrates the point.

 

[dom yo]

whoa thats a drastic difference. awesome tip

 

[Big Mike]

whoa thats a drastic difference. awesome tip

Well, to be fair, the post processing on these two shots was quite different. For the purposes of this tip, I'm mainly talking about the reflectivity of the water.

 

[FRENZEL]

Exactly what I was looking for! Thank you. I have a few ideas I'll try now. I know it was a broad question but that helped. I have the filter and know what it is for but the pic really put it into focus for me.

 

[dom yo]

whoa thats a drastic difference. awesome tip

Well, to be fair, the post processing on these two shots was quite different. For the purposes of this tip, I'm mainly talking about the reflectivity of the water.

O yea I'm sure, I was mainly referring to the detail in the water.