Wildlife and the Burst Mode by Ossian Lindholm

Intro by Skip Cohen

Ossian is at again with another great tip to help you raise the bar on the quality of your images, this time when photographing wildlife. 

And, don't forget, Ossian is coming to Maine next month, June 21 - 27, to teach The Art and Craft of Mindful Travel Photography workshop at the Maine Media Workshop. This class will fill with 12 people. Just click the link to find out more.

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Just about every serious camera today has a burst mode for continuous shooting.  Some of the higher end DSLRs will typically shoot  5-7  fps (frames per second). Set up and ready to go, when you press the shutter-release button the camera will take a burst of images.

When photographing wildlife I recommend you set your camera in the fastest shooting mode.  While every situation is slightly different, this will allow you to capture moments that would normally go unnoticed by the naked eye.  It also allows you to have a variety of images of a similar action.  Plus, there's no such thing as too many images these days. We're all shooting digitally and "extra" images are easily edited out later on.
 

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I was in front of a Buzzard Chested Eagle, which is one of the biggest eagles we have in Argentina.  The eagle was on a rock not too far in front of me and I knew it was about to fly.  My finger was poised on the shutter button, ready to capture the images. With the first movement of the eagle I started shooting. 

There are five photos in the sequence. The camera I was using shoots 6 frames per second, making all of this action occurring in less than a second.  Technology is constantly changing and today we have the most creative tools in the history of photography. These images would have been impossible to register if the camera wasn't set to shoot in a fast burst.