To the waters and the wild

THE seagulls danced overhead.

Bits of mackerel and loaves of bread tossed into the air caused mayhem as an easy meal was sized up.

Occasionally a lone gannet, yellow wing-tipped, swooped into the melée before pulling up straight and charging into the water like a knife.

But this was no time to be thinking of Eric Cantona’s trawlers and seagull metaphor, as another star in his field, renowned wildlife photographer Mike Brown, was demonstrating the art of wildlife photography.

A class of nine students was here, off the coast of Union Hall in West Cork, to learn the best techniques at the hand of the master. Some were old hands just fine-tuning their skillsets and had followed Brown to Norway to shoot the white-tailed sea eagle. Others, yours truly, had a relatively fancy camera (a Canon 1000D digital SLR), and just needed to get beyond the manual settings. That camera, however, was a mere tiddler compared to the serious gear carried by some of the students — zoom lenses as wide as a saucer and as long as an arm. But I was encouraged by a recent photo competition where the winners used disposable cameras.

So, undaunted, and straight into action, we depart the pier on the chartered whale watcher Holly Jo under the captaincy of Colin Barnes. Firstly, explains Brown, to take better shots the onus is to move on to manual settings. That way the camera doesn’t have to ‘guess’ what you want from it.

“If you learn to use manual correctly then where you have difficult lighting or backgrounds, the use of manual settings on your camera will prevent the camera being fooled by the wrong part of the image into making an incorrect exposure for the subject. For example, a white gull against a dark background or a dark seal against a really light background,” Brown explains.

As the Holly Jo drifts along the cliffs near Toe Head we cruise into an inlet where there are some nesting shags and kittiwakes.

Most of the scene is black — cliffs and water, with the complication of a white bird (the subject) in the middle. I ask Brown what does the camera see here and what’s the best way to shoot the bird?

“Typically, unless the bird is very large in the frame the camera sees a lot of dark area in the picture and is fooled [if in an automatic exposure mode] into making the picture too light. This will render the white bird too white and you will lose all detail in its white feathers.”

He explains that if you wish to remain in an auto exposure mode, you must use some compensation to the minus side (making the camera expose less by speeding up the shutter speed or closing the lens aperture) and this will record the bird more correctly. Still white, but with detail in the white.

But there is an alternative. “You can change to manual exposure mode and set the camera to expose less than it recommends with its meter, thereby getting the same result. The manual mode is better if the bird is moving and changing size in the frame as each time the amount of black and white changes in the frame the camera will try to change the exposure if it is in auto. By using manual we override this and as long as the bird remains in the same light the fixed manual setting will record it perfectly for each picture.”

Okay, that makes sense, and I make a mental note to self, to practise, practise, practise that aspect. However, in the meantime the birds have flown the coop. But there will be more. So onwards to our next quarry — a bunch of brown seals lolling in the sea off High Island and Low Island. As we approach the islands Barnes helpfully tells us High Island, an edifice of sandstone, seagull poo and a patch of grass, was inhabited for over 500 years. Incredible.

True to form, the seals are idling in the shallows. The day however, is very changeable. Bright one minute, thunderclouds the next. A key way of dealing with this on digital cameras is the ISO setting.

Over to Brown: “By setting a higher ISO we allow the camera to use a faster shutter speed in any given lighting situation. For example, if the camera is set at 100 ISO and is getting a shutter speed of 1/125sec, by raising the ISO to 400 we will now be able to use a shutter speed of 1/500 sec for the shot. This will be especially useful for freezing movement of wildlife or a sporting event for instance.”

Fantastic. For someone who has always used the basic action symbol on the camera — and produced some okay pictures — that point really sinks home. Anything above 1/400 will freeze pretty much anything. But there is a downside. “As we raise the ISO, the quality of the image starts to deteriorate a little but with the most up-to-date digital cameras, high ISO quality has become excellent up to quite high levels — a godsend to sports photographers under floodlights,” he says.

Meanwhile, one seal comes up really close to the boat and my camera is on AV (one of the manual settings) with an f/5 aperture and an ISO of 400. I snap his lonesome eyes.

The morning part of the course is finishing so we pull into Reen pier opposite the hilly village of Castletownshend. A quick lunch and we drive a 20 minute hop to Ballineen where Brown is involved in the Irish National Forestry Foundation which manages 360 acres — much of it natural woodland. They have custom-built hides to photograph many kinds of birds up close. But the day is getting dark again and birdlife is thin in the air.

Then one of our group beside a pond spots an inauspicious grey-looking dragonfly. But this introduces us to the wonderful world of macro photography. There is a specific macro setting on many lenses.

What the eye can’t see here is the wondrous detail and colour at a macro level (micro being the world around us). So our four-spotted chaser dragonfly is worth another look. And he’s remarkably co-operative, unlike the kittiwakes earlier.

At this point I switch lenses and mount a macro Pentax lens with extension tubes. It’s not digital, so auto focus will not work.

“So if you look at that [insect] it focuses from infinity right down to 45cm but with the extension tubes it should focus even closer. So rather than try to focus it, then, you just move in and out from the point that you find.

“But you have to be incredibly accurate with it to get a sharp image. So, the ideal thing is you use a tripod, move it where you want it and then click the cable release. The smaller the aperture the more depth of field, the larger the aperture the less depth of field,” he says. At this point I switch back to my old reliable Sigma 70mm-300mm zoom lens. The results are immediate.

Later we shoot some flowers where a similar technique to the macro is involved. Photography is always a kind of compromise, says Brown. You can get really close but you can’t necessarily get everything in focus. Or you can stay further back, get everything in focus, but everything is not close-up.

“The more you close down the aperture of the lens when you take the picture, the more in front of and behind a flower say, [point of focus] snaps into focus the moment you take the picture. But a couple of other things are in play. The closer you go to that flower, the less that [focus] becomes and the longer the lens you use the less that becomes,” says Brown.

“So if you want this flower and everything blurred behind, the ideal thing would be to use a longer lens from further away with a very wide aperture — not close the aperture at all. Then this point would be in focus and everything around it, front and back, would be blurred. Conversely, if you want to get everything in focus from the flower to the wall in the distance you need to close the aperture as tight as possible (f20 and up). That will increase depth of field. But the closer you are to a subject, if you have to go super, super close with your lens, depth of field is immediately minimised,” he says.

For someone who has struggled with the complicated settings — the mysterious aperture, ISO and shutter speed techno-speak, I feel a lot more confident after my time with Mike. But, as he reminds me, it will take practise and more practise. Next stop, National Geographic.

* www.mikebrownphotography.com

Five tips for wildlife photography

1. Learn as much as you can about your subject matter so you know how it may behave, where you will find it and what time of year or day it may be active.

2. Prepare yourself for your shoot by using the best weather and/or best times of day to get the most from the light.

3. Where possible, use a tripod. Even in these days of high ISO capability, the best results may be achieved by using a lower ISO resulting in lower shutter speeds. By using a tripod you guard against camera shake.

4. Know your camera and how to change settings as quickly as possible for that surprise event.

5. Start with easy subjects. Most local town parks and rivers will have ducks, swans and gulls which are used to humans and provide great subject matter. Learn your skills with these subjects and progress to more difficult subjects when you are getting super shots of these.

A quick note: Some species are protected by law within the Wildlife Act and knowledge of this is a must for aspiring nature photographers. Some creatures are shy and are easily disturbed — always remember that your subject should come first, not your picture.