Choosing the right lens for wildlife photography

If you are starting out with wildlife photography the first thing that comes to mind is, of course, the equipment! The first thing you would have come across is the wide variety of lenses that are available on the market. Wide angles, zooms, primes, macros only to name the most common ones. This is overwhelming, I know, I’ve been there. Then you look at the prices, and you feel even more overwhelmed because if you don’t make the right decision, it will cost you a butt ton of money.  So, I am going to simply break it down for you to help you navigate this problem and help understand exactly what you need! And at the end of the blog, I will tell you which lenses and camera I have, which ones I use most, and what I like or dislike about each one.

What do I mean when I say each lens has a style? Well simply, each lens is made for a specific use and for who might use it. Like the things in your house; every object has its place and has a different purpose made specifically for its use. Firstly, you must find the type of photography you like. I am sure you have already explored this since you are going to invest in buying the gear for photography. There are so many styles in wildlife photography, but identifying what you like and want to shoot is crucial for choosing the right lens.

Here are a few styles you might want to think about:

·         Wide environmental shots

·         Close-ups of animals like insects or frogs

·         Tight bird images with smooth blurry backgrounds

·         Creative or abstract images

 Now that you see what your main options are here is how they correspond with the lens you’ll want to get.

Wide environmental shots can be achieved by two types of lenses: zoom and wide angle. Although both can be used, their uses and image results differ quite a bit. Wide angle lenses are great for getting more creative shots. Images taken with wide angle lenses are often awarded in prestigious wildlife photography competitions. There is a good reason for this. Because you are taking images wide and not really zooming in close there are a certain number of conditions, behaviours and subject proximity that must fall in place. This makes it hard to get a lot of these images, and it requires great skill and patience. You might only get a couple of stunning wildlife images from using a wide-angle lens in a year. This is really something to consider and why I personally only have a 18-150mm kit lens that came with my camera that I use for shooting wide angle shots. This doesn’t give the absolute best quality, but I feel that it gets the job done when it needs to, and I rarely use this lens. Next is a zoom lens, which is my go-to lens for wildlife photography but more about that later. I sometimes zoom all the way out to 100mm that allows me to get quick wider, environmental shots when I need to. This doesn’t at all offer the same wideness as a wide-angle lens, but it surely works perfectly for shots where I just want to show the environment as well.

I took this image using my 100-400mm and I love that includes the enviroment while still featuring the bird as the main subject. (c) Liam Botha

To get close-up shots of animals like insects, frogs, reptiles or maybe even plants, there is a special lens photographers use called a Macro Lens. The whole purpose of a macro lens is that you can have a much closer focusing distance, making the subject way bigger in the frame that you will be able to with other lenses. I will only really recommend getting a Macro Lens if you are seriously into this type of photography. It is also worth noting that if you are going to move in the direction of macro photography it is essential that you also invest in getting a good flash like a twin flash. You will also want to get a diffuser, though this is easy and can be homemade using aerothene, and can be bought at packaging stores or online.

A closeup shot I took using my macro lens of a East African Shovelsnout. (c) Liam Botha

I’m sure we have all dreamt about getting those stunning bird close-ups with those super blurry, soft backgrounds. This is often achieved using prime lenses. A prime lens is simply a lens that cannot zoom and is fixed at like 400 or 500mm. What makes these lenses so nice is their low light capability as they often have very low apertures like f2.8 or f4. Although it is worth noting that these prime lenses are very expensive and hard to work with if you are a beginner. This is because finding a subject in the frame at 400 or 500mm is very hard especially if you are only starting. Birds in flight only makes it harder and it may leave you with a lot of frustration and missed shots at first. It is also worth noting that I do not have a prime lens and have managed to get some insane close-up shots using my 100-400mm f5.6-8. Getting these close-up shots requires patience and skill that will only build with time no matter what lens you have.

With a bit of patience and skill, I managed to get this shot with my 100-400mm zoom lens despite it being at f8 at 400mm. (c) Liam Botha

Now we get to the last style, it is one of my favourites and probably the hardest of them all. Creative photography! Honestly there is no right or wrong lens for this but there are some that just give a whole new experience and perspective to the viewer. A macro lens can allow you to get some very interesting patterns of let’s say tree bark or leaf litter. A wide-angle lens will require patience and many factors to fall in place as I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. However, when they do fall in place the results are nothing short of breathtaking. Just think about those wide elephant shots taken in Amboseli National Park! Next let’s have a look at the zoom lens. It’s ability to shoot what you want to in a simple turn of the lens makes your creative freedom endless. Whether you want to get a close-up shot of a single zebra’s fur, or then in a few seconds zoom out completely to include the herd, it is totally up to you.

These shots are definitely more on the creative side and I really love the story they tell.

Now in conclusion, wildlife photography has an endless amount of creative tunnels to dive down but it all starts with your lens! I have three main lenses that I use, and I use each for different purposes. Firstly, I have the canon EOS R10 which works great; however, I do feel that its buffer fills up rather quickly. Then I have my zoom lens thay I definitely use the most. Mine is the Canon RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 IS USM Lens and I love it! Its quality is great and I love that I can zoom in and out, however I mostly stick to 400mm with the occasional zoom out to get some nice environmental shots. Then I have my Canon EF100mm Macro F/2.8 L IS USM. I use this one for macro shots and the occasional creative image. Then the lens I use the least, my Canon RF-S 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM. This one is mainly for wide angle shots.

  Using my zoom lens to get photographs of a Red-chested Cuckoo.