One of the most basic tactics of photography from the past is now a fashion photography trend in the wildlife segment too, i.e. Blurring the Background!
From the past years, the wildlife photographers spent hours in the field and used various tactics to get the best snaps of their animals in different poses and actions. Blurring the background is a prominent one. This is one of those wildlife photography tips that is particularly important on a safari tour because often there is foliage in the image on the backgrounds along with the main subject which is distracting. Be it a lion sitting with its cub, a scared zebra looking for a way to save itself or an Elephant herd walking back home in the grasslands. Blurring the backgrounds and non-subject items, gives more emphasis to what you are actually trying to capture perfect in your photo. If you are photographing a herd of elephant just like as shown in the picture taken during one of our Tanzania Safari Tour, you might want to make sure that they are all in focus and get more weight age than something that you actually think is for background purposes only.
The swanky name to describe the portion of the picture/image that appears sharp throughout the whole image is called the depth of field. But more important than knowing what it’s called is knowing, how to control it!
There are 3 factors that can be used to control the depth of the field
the aperture
the focal length of the lens and
the camera to subject distance.
Of these three, the aperture is the one that you have the most control over on a safari tour. A big aperture opening (e.g f/4.5) will lead to more background blurring while a small aperture (e.g f/22) will lead to the overall scene being sharper. Most photographers these days use large range of aperture opening to make their photographs more subjects centric and this is what our photographers did on the Tanzania Tours to make the most out of their pictures. Have a look at our Tanzania image gallery.
Trying the same in an open field with vast range is more justified. Hence it will be great help to know how to change the aperture opening on your gear before you go on safari. In the picture taken in Serengeti National Park while on our safari trip to Tanzania, the photographer waited for the perfect lighting in the scenery, set the right aperture, focal length and set a proper camera distance while he gave this perfect shot.
While you concentrate on the three settings given above it is also very important that you consider one more aspect that goes hand in hand with the same, i.e. the correct lighting. So be it a wedding ceremony in your family, an outdoor date with a girlfriend or an encounter in the wild, learn and master these tactics to impress all.
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