What's it take to be a great wildlife photographer?
Over in the Birder group Donkeys is posting some of the most spectacular images of exotic and domestic (to the US) birds. It makes you think, 'What have I been doing with my life?'
There is an answer to that. On one of my visits to Galveston for Featherfest (google it, it's a great tourist event) I booked a few field trips with a fellow by the name of Tim Timmis. Tim is an engineer by trade and a wildlife photographer by avocation. He has a great website: https://www.timtimmis.com/
In some 'off the record' conversations I found out how he got into photography and the true secret to really great wildlife imagery. He was shooting a crop sensor Canon DSLR. It had a shutter life of maybe 200,000 exposures. The shutter was replaced three times before he upgraded to a FF Canon in which he also replaced the shutter two more times. In round numbers he has made a million exposures. Only the top >1% are represented on his web page. That was 5 years ago.
He said his keep rate got better over time not because of equipment but because over time he began to think like his subjects. That and being there day after day. In the cold. In the rain. Lying on his belly in the mud at Point Bolivar. Wearing out cameras and being absolutely brutal when editing the 500 to 1000 pictures he took on an average day.
I guess the moral of the story is know your subject, know your equipment, be there rain or shine and shoot in burst mode.
But most of all know your subject, be there and capture every single fraction of a second you can.
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