Once you have the correct gear and have cultivated your vision you need to find relevant places to practice your photography.
Depending on your nature photography niche, you need to choose your national park and season with your subject in mind. If you are into birds then Kruger would be a good choice, if you like macro then don't go in winter and if you are a landscape photographer then choose camps that are high up with a view.
• For Wildlife Photography medium to super telephoto and zoom lenses are needed and you need to choose the most appropriate national park based on your equipment and the duration of your stay.
• For Landscape Photography wide angle and medium telephoto lenses are needed. In most cases you can use your macro lenses for landscapes but there are other specialist lenses, such as tilt-shift lenses, that can help you get better photographs. And keep in mind that some parks are more scenic than others.
• For Close-up or Macro Photography you need specialist macro lenses that provide at least one-to-one magnification in order to show the fine details of insects and flowers. For macro photography you need to choose the park and the season very carefully otherwise you may end up with no subjects!
• For Bird Photography super telephoto lenses are needed because the subjects tend to be so small. And remember that the time of year you visit the park is important depending on which bird species you are wanting to photograph.
Besides the appropriate camera bodies and lenses there are a host of accessories such as tripods, flashes, filters and tele-converters that are needed, which are all discussed on the Nature Photo Gear pages.
In addition to the right gear you need VISION - having a sense of lighting, color and composition. Knowing when a scene has potential and when to move on and look for a more appealing subject and knowing when to shoot Black and White instead of color.
If you compare two photographs of a rock monitor lizard taken by different photographers standing next to each other - one an advanced amateur or professional and the other a beginner, you will see that making impressive images is not just a matter of "being in the right place at the right time!"
And the professional merges his ability to use his gear with his vision in order to get the final result.
In the first photo above you end up with a 'nice portrait' of the rock monitor while in the second photograph, where the 5-P's have been implemented, you end up with a sharp action photograph of exactly the same subject!
The first photo is simply a snapshot while the second photo is WOW!
So if you would like to take your nature photography to the next level you need to progress from taking snapshots to making photographs. The way to make photographs is to have the right gear, understand how your gear works and then to have vision.
In these pages we will provide you with hints and tips for both.