Why wildlife photographers need long telephoto lenses

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Gord Nelson said:
Yeah, and when did you ever see a buffalo "bite" a photographer!!!  ;D ;D
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Personally I have been charged twice by a buffalo.

A few years ago when I was at the Yellowstone Canyon Visitors Center. They show a movie continuously that is nothing but buffaloes attacking people. It is pretty sickening to watch. Some of these people get gored and tossed up in the air like a rag doll. And every single one of these idiots that got too close had a little point and shoot in their hand.

And while we are on the subject, in today's news, don't get to close to the elephants:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2309689/Two-tourists-injured-South-Africas-flagship-national-park-elephant-charges-overturns-car.html
 
Jeez, photographers need to get 'danger pay' these days. 

Come to think of it, that car looks somewhat like what my friend's car did when he hit a buffalo(Bison) on the road up in Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories.  He was in a Volkswagen.  Went right under the animal's belly.  He was okay, and so was the Buffalo.  It hardly moved he said.  Just shook himself and walked off.  Luckily it was a dirt road and he wasn't going too fast at the time.  The roof was partly crushed and the front end really wasn't too bad up to the curve in it then it showed some flattening.  Windshield popped and Reg said " all he could see and smell was "buffalo"!

Just saw on the news today a story of a beaver taking up residence in a waterway surrounded by concrete and high rises in Vancouver.  Not much natural growth and very few trees...none native to the area.  Just waiting for the "Ain't he cute" crowd to find out he might be "cute like an alligator"!

Gord
 
Personally I have been charged twice by a buffalo.
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How much did he charge?  ??? ::) ;D ;D

Seriously, it's quite apparent that most any wild animal can be dangerous under certain circumstances -- even domestic ones, on occasion.
 
SeilerBird said:
Well the answer is obvious if you were paying attention. He charged 5 cents. ;D
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I guess I couldn't afford to pay attention at that point. Is that meaning he'll nickel and dime you to death?  ;) :D :eek:
 
Gary - That is the exact same Beaver attack that I linked to in the first post. However your link does include a video of the attack so it is a better link.

Anyone who has not seen the video should click through Gary's link.

Yes, that is a wide angle lens. Exactly as I guessed. Any wild animal can be aggressive and bite people especially if it is momma and she has kids in the neighborhood. Animals simply don't care if you are 100 times bigger than they are, if they feel they or their offspring are threatened they will attack.

Photographers like me contribute to the idea that wild animals are approachable. But most people don't realize I am always very far away from anything that is remotely dangerous. I use a very long telephoto and crop my images severely to make the animal fill most of the frame.
 
Tom:
Just a question from a 'rank amateur'.  Do you do your post processing on the original image first, then crop...or the other way around?  Severely cropping first would leave you the same pixels in the cropped portion as in the original, to work with wouldn't it? And, I think you said it was Lightroom that you used if I remember correctly from one of Bob's posts.
Gord
 
Cropping the image is the very first thing I do. That way all the decisions I make about brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness are from looking at only the part of the image that will be the final image.

Years and years ago I almost had to crop first because computers were so slow. If I took an image and applied sharpening or any other processor intensive process it would take a lot longer for the computer to process the complete image than to process the cropped image.

There is an order to which post processing should be done. Crop the image, adjust white balance, adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness and then apply noise reduction last. Of course there can be more steps in between these, but 95% of my images are done just that way. This is not a work flow I made up, this is universally agreed upon as the best order to post process.

Yes I use Lightroom. One of the very coolest things about Lightroom is that when you are using the Develop Module to do your post processing the sliders to make all these adjustments are located on a pane to the right of the image and the sliders are top to bottom in the order I just listed. This makes it way simpler and faster than Photoshop to do post processing because everything is right at my fingertips and I never have to search for anything.

No matter how severely you crop an image you do not disturb the pixels at all. It is identical to cutting a photo out of a magazine. The photo you end up with is identical to the one you started with. You don't change the size of the image at all.

Speaking of Lightroom, Adobe just released a free beta of Lightroom 5. I have not downloaded it because I have been using LR3 for years and I am very happy with it. I downloaded the beta of LR4 and didn't like some of the changes so I am sticking with LR3. I am happy to help Gord.
 
Here is a work flow suggested by Scott Kelby.

Duplicate the original image or scan,working in a copy makes it possible to recover the original later.

Ensure the resolution is appropriate for the intended use.

Cropping the image to the final size and orientation.

Repairs flaws in scans of damaged photos.

Adjust the overall contrast or tonal range of the image.

Remove any color casts.

Adjust the color and tone in specific parts of the image to bring out highlights,  midtones, shadows and desaturate colors.

Sharpening the overall focus of the image.

Usually, you should compleat these processes in the order listed.  Otherwise the results of one processes may cause unintended changes to other parts of the image, making it necessary for you to redo some of your work.
 
cva61 said:
Duplicate the original image or scan,working in a copy makes it possible to recover the original later.
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This step is totally unnecessary. It is impossible to work on the original image. The original image is located on your hard drive. To edit it a copy is placed in memory. The original is untouched. When you finish working on it then use "Save As" to save a copy of the edited image. If you use "Save" you would overwrite the original.
Ensure the resolution is appropriate for the intended use.
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This is not possible with programs such as Lightroom. You can't change the resolution until you save the image. Nor is there any reason to worry about resolution at this point.
Cropping the image to the final size and orientation.
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Once again with many image editing programs you can't crop to the final size until the end. What he should have said is final format, i.e. 16:9.
Repairs flaws in scans of damaged photos.
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This doesn't apply to digital photography images, only scanned photos.
Adjust the overall contrast or tonal range of the image.
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He forgot brightness.
Remove any color casts.
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I prefer to do this earlier.
Adjust the color and tone in specific parts of the image to bring out highlights,  midtones, shadows and desaturate colors.
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This is only for very experienced Photoshop users and not your average photographer. Personally I prefer to add a little saturation, not remove saturation from my images.
Sharpening the overall focus of the image.

Usually, you should complete these processes in the order listed.  Otherwise the results of one processes may cause unintended changes to other parts of the image, making it necessary for you to redo some of your work.
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Correct. Also any changes made will always have a negative effect on the sharpness of an image so it should be done near the end. Then apply any noise reduction.

There is a huge flaw in his work flow. Many times I make more than one copy of an image. One copy will be 1920 x 1080 for Picasa and another at 1280 x 900 for the forum. With Scott's method after I saved the first image I would have to go back and start at square one and completely redo the entire image so that I could save it at a different resolution. With my work flow all I have to do is change the image dimensions and click the Save As button then resave it under a different name. With Lightroom the image is saved in Lightroom with all my changes so a week later if I decide I want a different sized copy I can open Lightroom and save me a different sized copy in seconds. Much better than starting all over again.
 
Gary RV Roamer said:
I apologize, Tom. I'm guilty of jumping into the middle of a thread I had not read from the beginning. Shame on me!  :-[
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Hey no reason to apologize. I have done the same thing myself. In fact I am glad you posted the link because I had not seen the video.
 
That brings back memories of the last time I remember seeing my wife.
 

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That reminds me of a story. I spent a lot of the 80s underwater taking photos. I went to Hawaii and the Caribbean every year. There is one species of fish, called a Blenny, and his job is to protect his little patch of the reef against all invaders. About once a dive I would get into the territory "owned" by a Blenny and the guy would come over and bite me on the ear. Now that sounds dangerous until you realize a Blenny is about an inch long and cannot open his mouth wide enough to actually bite. It would feel like they were bumping into me. The Blenny did not care that I was thousands and thousands of times bigger than him, it is in his DNA to attack anything threatening his territory. I was invading and he was defending. This is why you have to be careful of any wildlife you photograph.
 
When I need to work around the underneath of our dock, it's often easier to jump in the water to do it. It doesn't take long for the crappie and bluegill to start biting me  :(
 
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