10 tips for terrible wildlife photos

I’m getting better at spotting wildlife – better, not good – so I’ve turned my attention to the next step along the evolutionary path: getting decent wildlife photos. And again, I’m terrible.

We have no end of distant grey blobs in trees, fuzzy winged creatures floating on lakes, and pixelated piles in the grasslands. If I do happen to catch an in-focus shot, the animal is cut off at the edge as it escapes into the woods, or the van’s side-view mirror blocks the head.

I’m not always a bad photographer – I have great shots of mountain vistas and castles, which tend not to dart into the woods. I know not to shoot into the sun, can frame a shot using the rule of thirds, and can set up people shots – especially of Bill, since I can order him to smile again but not be a dork this time.

After reviewing our wildlife photos of the past year, I’ve concluded that my best shots have been when a) the animal is stuffed and mounted (see top photo of quails, noting the wall seam), b) the animal is in a wildlife rescue centre, and c) the animal is naturally slow, such as sloths, anemones, barnacles and oysters.

But wildlife in the wild? Running or flying or swimming freely? Terrible.

Rather than aweing you with the spectacularly non-existent images of wonderful wildlife we’ve seen on our travels, I present instead my tried-and-true 10 tips for taking terrible wildlife photos.

1 Leave the good camera behind.

Soaring bald eagles, browsing bighorn sheep, galumphing bears. It never fails that when we’re in a spot close enough to take a great photo, our good camera is at home and all we have is our smartphone.

Our compact Sony Cybershot HX80 has a good zoom lens (30X optical) for such a small camera. But the zoom quality doesn’t matter when it’s at home. Instead, we’re left using our smartphone.

Our Google Pixel takes decent photos of expansive scenery and castles, close shots of people, and medium distance large animals that aren’t moving. But when it comes to distant shots of animals, moving or still, the results are sad.

In Castlegar, as we crossed the pedestrian suspension bridge to Zuckerberg Island Heritage Park, I spotted a mama bear and her cub swimming across the river to the island. Of course, our Sony was in the van, so I quickly zoomed in as far as I could with the smartphone, watching them scramble onto shore. The baby romped ahead of mama and they disappeared into the trees. They’re tiny dots in the photo. The video we caught of a black bear in Jasper National Park was more successful, but still not the best.

Even our Sony can’t do justice to birds in flight. You really need a long zoom lens. I’ve taken to carrying the Sony with us on every walk, hike, bike trip or drive, but that just means we don’t see any wildlife at all. I’m cursed.

2 Don’t clean your windshield or your camera lens.

Leave the dust from the gravel road arcing over where the windshield wipers smeared the dead bugs. And don’t clean the inside glass either – where you maniacally smashed a mosquito and smeared blood right in your line of vision, or left toe prints after resting your tired legs on the dashboard. All those marks will enhance any photos you take from your van.

Similarly, leave those fingerprints or dust particles on your camera lens.

3 Leave the Kleenex box, parking stubs and map on the dashboard.

All objects left on the dash will reflect on the glass and suitably ruin your shots, especially those taken quickly.

Unfortunately, I deleted all my sample photos.

4 Take shots from a moving vehicle on a highway.

Guaranteed to net you dozens of blurry backsides disappearing into the bush or fuzzy wings far away in the sky. If you pull over to the side and stop, your chances of getting an in-focus shot will go up considerably, so keep it moving.

To be fair, it’s often unsafe to slow down or pull over when you’re in heavy traffic or on a curving, dangerous road with steep drop-offs.

5 Keep your camera safely in its case or your pocket, purse or backpack.

This especially useful tip shines when you’re in a moving vehicle or anywhere where you’re likely to see the big mammals everyone wants to see in western Canada.

“There’s a bear!” I shouted to Bill when we were driving on the Icefields Parkway in Alberta. The Sony was in its case in a backpack and our smartphone was plugged in recharging, buried in the centre console under a map. The young black bear scrambled up the embankment into treed protection long before I could fumble a camera into shooting position.

For us, wildlife photo opportunities usually happen on the fly, even when hiking, and usually when our cameras are buried. 

6 If you can’t get a photo of the animal, settle for a stand-in.

When showing off your adventure photos, everyone wants to see a sign of the animal rather than the real thing, right? Footprints, scat, owl pellets, scratches on tree trunks, bones, chunks of fur.

We have many shots of footprints, which are fun to learn to identify. On a hiking trail just outside Osoyoos, we encountered what we believed to be wolf tracks all along the muddy path we were following.

“Don’t fall behind – you’ll get eaten,” Bill warned me. Helpful guy.

We’ve also photographed a lot of bear scat – readily identifiable from all the berry seeds in it – on trails all around us.

We even have literal signs of animals – those yellow roadside signs warning about the animals that might be on the highway (although, to my disappointment, the animals in question don’t seem to know they’re supposed to frequent those stretches of road). In Ontario, wildlife signs typically warn of deer and moose. But British Columbia’s warnings include elk, bears, mama bear and cub, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, badgers and rattlesnakes.

Wildlife warning signs are also posted at trailheads and on telephone poles in some towns.

7 Take majestic shots of wild birds…on lawns.

Guaranteed to wow your friends and show off your National Geographic-type photographic adventures: take photos of birds on grassy lawns.

California quails, for example, congregate by the dozens in town and off in the hills. They’re plump when bobbling about looking for food, but they stretch out when they run, with feet pedalling and upper body level, just like Fred Flintstone or the Roadrunner. Quite hilarious. They’re handsome birds, but skittish, so it’s hard to get close enough for a decent shot. I waited patiently for an hour with the Sony, zoomed right in, to get shots of quails on the lawn. 

8 Take photos of animals in wildlife rescue centres.

Our best wildlife photos have, sadly, been taken in wildlife rescue centres. It’s tempting to try to pass them off as taken in the wild, but inevitable clues give them away, such as cages and people feeding them.

In Costa Rica, the Sloth Sanctuary yielded spectacular photos, especially of the adorable baby sloths. And at the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre, on Vancouver Island, we visited dozens of birds (and two bears) who have recovered from injuries but still can’t be released to the wild: owls, vultures, ravens, hawks, eagles.   

But do they really count as wildlife photos?

9 Take photos of stuffed animals.

Even worse than #8 is taking photos of stuffed animals on display (often with a realistic diorama as a backdrop) in museums, nature centres, and visitor centres. These taxidermic teaching tactics do serve an educational purpose. But it’s a sad photographer who takes photos and tries to pass them off as the real thing.

The Osoyoos Desert Centre had quite a menagerie of stuffed birds, including quails, owls, falcons and burrowing owls.

10 Take one photo only, then move on.

Bill and I have a constant ‘debate’ about how many photos one should take. I spent my journalistic career working with photographers who took dozens of photos to ensure that one would be perfect, and I learned from that. I say Bill doesn’t take enough photos and he says I take too many that then eat up memory space.

“So what?” I counter. “They’re digital. We’ll just delete the worst ones.”

“But you never delete them,” he responds.

Well, fair enough. I’m getting better at that, but if I deleted every terrible wildlife photo, we’d be left with none.

Despite my skills, some of our photos have turned out reasonably well. I leave you with samples of our best. Just don’t zoom in too much.