How to capture nature and inspire conservation: wildlife photography insights and tips

Austrian conservation photographers Christine Sonvilla and Marc Graf have photographed wildlife all over the planet, from the Austrian alpine lynx to the elusive Bengal tiger. The two met at the University of Vienna, where they were both studying conservation. They discovered their shared interest in photography, and realised it was a way to give nature a voice.

Marc gives an example of how this can make a difference: "In late 2016 we published the first high-resolution photo of an alpine lynx captured in the Austrian mountains, which was really exciting for us because there are only 10 to 15, over the whole of Austria, and there had been two cases of lynx poaching around that time. We tried to get that message of lynx conservation spread over Austria through all kinds of media."

Christine takes up the story: "We figure that roughly 2.2 million people had exposure to that particular topic, which works out at around a fifth of Austria's population. Plus, we're also doing a lot of live presentations using photography and film. Our work really is about bridging the gap between the public and the nature organisations, NGOs, scientists, all those people out there in the field."

Here, Christine and Marc share their insight and advice for using your nature photography as a tool for conservation, followed by our top 10 tips for capturing great wildlife images.

You don’t have to travel to a far-flung destination to find a story of nature’s resilience. In fact, a project closer to home will allow you to build your knowledge of the subject and more easily capture it under different conditions.

“We have focused on Central Europe in the past few years, and we've seen how ecosystems and wildlife can recover and rebound once given time and space,” Christine says. “For example, in the Bavarian Forest National Park the species diversity has increased incredibly because the authorities left masses of trees that were uprooted by a huge storm as dead wood. Normally they would be removed to reduce the chances of pests and disease. But you can see what a difference it's made to the diversity.”

Your idea doesn’t have to be epic in scale, either. Christine and Marc’s short film Flowing: My Dream of More Freedom tells the story of how life can flourish in a river when dams, weirs and other obstacles are removed, narrated from the river’s perspective. Watch the film below.

“It was quite an easy production,” Marc says, “and shows that the idea does not always have to be complex and involve years of production. We shot it all in 6-7 weeks in locations across Central Europe.” Christine and Marc mainly used the Canon EOS R5 (now succeeded by the Canon EOS R5 Mark II), paired with the RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM and a range of Canon wide-angle lenses.

Christine adds that despite the film lasting just four minutes, it has been a big success in terms of outreach. It has won awards at international film festivals, and even played in the European Parliament during a day of discussion of river restoration funding.

To start with, there may be a local rewilding or conservation project near you, possibly something you are already involved with. Beyond that, you could then reach out to scientists and specialists in the conservation community working with subjects you’re interested in. By building a network of contacts, you’ll be able to not only find stories worth telling but potentially discover new ways to tell them.

One of Christine and Marc’s projects that captured nature rebounding in the unlikeliest of places was only made possible because of their contacts in the scientific world. They were still in touch with an old friend from university who was studying crowned eagles in the Durban metropolitan area, South Africa.

“Who would think that one of Africa’s largest raptors thrives in a city with a population of 4 million people?” Christine says.

“Because of deforestation across southern Africa, these eagles are fighting for their survival and having to adapt to urban areas,” Marc adds. “But people are planting trees in their gardens and they’re happy to see eagles nesting in them.”

Christine explains: “One couple had a crowned eagle nest right outside their living room window. The first thing the lady did every morning was check that the birds were fine. We documented all these different aspects.”

If you're photographing wild animals then you may have only fleeting glimpses of your subject. Getting familiar with your camera controls will help you make the most of spontaneous moments.

"First of all, I’d recommend practising with your camera and learning how to adjust the aperture and so on, so you can do it instinctively – as if you’re driving a car," Christine says.

“Then it comes down to persistence and having the endurance to not give up easily. Sometimes you can have days where you don’t even push the shutter release because nothing has happened. But you need to keep going.

“It's also crucial to have your mind open to everything that is in the picture. Don’t just focus on the subject, but the little details in the background too. Even if it’s somewhat blurred, the backdrop can really set your photo apart from other photographs of the same subject.”

How you use your lens can help you communicate details of the subject in an arresting way too. A telephoto lens doesn’t just pull distant subjects into view, for example, it also makes background details appear bigger and closer to the subject than when you shoot with a wide-angle lens. You can use this effect to make a plant or animal appear "under threat" from its environment.

Sharing your wildlife images on social media can be a useful way to raise awareness and inspire people to find out more. You could use shots that capture nature’s resilience, or images that depict threats and pressure on the natural world.

"We are always thinking about the story we’d like to tell and the core images we’d like to achieve," Marc explains. The aim is to take one image that tells the whole story, he says: “It’s the heart of the work. So, it’s important to have a plan, then you can adjust all the technical aspects, such as aperture and focal length, your camera angle, how you compose the background and so on.

“We always head towards the positive aspect of storytelling when it comes to social media. We hardly share any images that show any negative side of a story. If we do, then we show what was and how it turned out to be – so there's a positive focus.”

Unpredictable animals that move quickly, infrequently and erratically can be some of the most challenging subjects to photograph.

But photographing wildlife is much like sports photography – key considerations include preparing effectively, finding the right position, knowing what kit you need (and how to use it), and expecting the unexpected.

Here are our top 10 tips for capturing great wildlife images.

Having knowledge of the habitat and behaviour of the animal you are photographing is vitally important and will save hours in the field. Knowing what time of the year a species is active will help with your shoot planning. Great wildlife images are rarely taken without knowledge and organisation.

A camera and lens combination that’s relatively lightweight will be more convenient to carry if you’re having to travel to remote locations. Reliable autofocus and a fast continuous shooting speed (high number of frames per second) will let you take shots in quick succession, helping you to capture bursts of animal behaviour. A camera with a Vari-Angle LCD screen will make it easier to shoot from creative angles, such as low down for eye-to-eye shots with animals.

Telephoto lenses allow you to photograph wildlife from further away, but it's worth considering other types of lenses for nature photography too. Wide-angle lenses let you capture animals and plants within a wider landscape or cityscape setting, while macro lenses help you to create impactful close-up photos of insects and other small subjects.

The Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM has an extensive zoom range that enables great versatility. For even greater super-telephoto reach on a full-frame mirrorless camera such as the Canon EOS R8, there are the Canon RF 600mm F11 IS STM and RF 800mm F11 IS STM prime lenses.

If you have an APS-C format camera such as the EOS R7 and want to start small in terms of both build and budget, consider the Canon RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM.

As the sensor in an APS-C camera is smaller than the sensor in a full-frame camera, your subject will be bigger in the frame, so in effect an APS-C camera is zooming in by a factor of about 1.6x. Pair the RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM lens with the EOS R7, for example, and you benefit from an “effective focal length" of 160-640mm. Find out more in our comprehensive guide to understanding focal length.

Find out more about choosing the best wildlife lenses.

In wildlife photography, it's important to ensure your subject is sharp. Canon's range of mirrorless EOS R System cameras have a highly effective autofocus system using Canon's Dual Pixel AF tech. In this system, every photosite on the sensor is capable of autofocus as well as imaging, which means, among other benefits, that subjects can be acquired and tracked anywhere in the image frame.

Some cameras including the Canon EOS R7 and EOS R6 Mark II feature an animal eye-detection autofocus mode, automatically searching for eyes in the scene and locking onto them. AI Servo autofocus mode continuously tracks wildlife on the move, even if it's moving very quickly, to ensure sharp shots. Try firing a burst of shots in your camera's fastest drive mode, to help nail the definitive moment.

Camera-shake is the enemy of sharp shots when using telephoto lenses.

The vast majority of Canon's telephoto lenses feature highly effective optical image stabilisation to combat this, typically equating to around 3-stops to 5-stops in exposure value. This can make a huge difference in handheld wildlife photography, where fast shutter speeds can be impractical in anything other than direct sunlight. The 5-stop Image Stabilizer on the Canon RF 600mm F11 IS STM should enable consistently sharp shots at 1/20 of a second instead of 1/640.

Use the Image Stabilizer for telephoto and macro photography, especially when working with the camera handheld. However, if your camera is on a tripod then it is better to switch off the Image Stabilizer.

The logical step when shooting fast-moving action is to raise the shutter speed. In the shot above, a shutter speed of 1/3200 sec has frozen the heron in motion and also water droplets in mid-air. Around 1/2000 sec or faster is a good starting point. However, you may want to introduce a little blur with a slower shutter speed, on the tips of a bird's wing for example, to add a sense of movement. With smaller, fast-moving birds, you're likely to get wingtip blur even at a relatively fast 1/1000 sec.

As you become more proficient, you may want to lower the shutter speed even further, possibly as far down as 1/10 sec, and even introduce a panning technique to further increase the sense of movement.

The rule of thumb is that you need a shutter speed that's at least as fast as the reciprocal full-frame focal length. So if you're using a 600mm lens such as the Canon RF 600mm F11 IS STM, you'd need a shutter speed of at least 1/600 of a second when the IS is off – on most cameras this will be 1/640.

In everyday photography, it's common to use the Aperture Priority shooting mode (AV on your camera dial). With macro lenses, because of the close working distances, you typically close down the aperture to f/16, f/22 or more to maximise the depth of field and ensure that the whole scene is in focus.

You can often enhance your wildlife photography by taking advantage of the blurring of out-of-focus parts of the image, known as bokeh, making your subject stand out. However, you may want to avoid blurring the background if you want to capture wildlife in its natural environment.

A longer focal length can result in stronger background blur. This is the reason why telephoto zooms can be used to isolate a subject and transform the backdrop into detail-less blur. If you want to enhance the bokeh, take a few steps back and zoom in to a longer focal length.

You can elevate your pictures by choosing the right lighting conditions to photograph your subjects. Taking into account the animals' behavioural patterns, try to use early morning or late evening sun for warm low light, which produces rich colour and deep shadows.

Use the rule of thirds to create a dynamic composition. Activating a 3x3 grid display in a Canon EOS R System camera’s electronic viewfinder can help. Leave more space in front of the subject than behind it, so the animal appears to be looking or moving into the photo rather than out of it.

Most importantly, always check the background for distractions. A bright object in the distance or a tree branch appearing to grow out of an animal’s head will draw the viewer’s attention away from the main subject.

To capture animals behaving naturally, be as quiet as possible, and use a zig-zag approach rather than heading directly towards them. Make sure the wind is in your face as you move closer so that your scent is carried away from them. Use available trees, rocks and other features in the landscape as cover, and avoid breaking the skyline.

Make sure your camera is switched on and set up before you try to get close. EOS R System cameras are much quieter in operation than DSLRs, as they don’t have a mirror moving up and down inside the body between each shot. The Canon EOS R7, EOS R10 and a number of other cameras in the range let you select Silent Shutter Function when you’re shooting in one of the Creative Zone modes. This disables various camera features that might otherwise alert an animal to your presence, such as the shutter release sound, flash firing and the AF-assist beam.

Many EOS R System cameras let you set the Shutter mode to Electronic independently of the Silent Shutter Function. You can also disable your camera’s beeping sounds in the main menu.

For smaller subjects, such as photographing bees, butterflies and other insects, shooting in extreme close-up will ensure your subject doesn't get lost in a wide shot. The best option for this is a macro lens, or you could even use the Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM, which has a 0.41x magnification and close focusing capabilities that can produce images that are very close to macro shots.

Canon's current macro lenses tend to feature hybrid image stabilisation, which makes them standout performers for handheld shooting of extreme close-ups. The Canon RF 35mm F1.8 IS MACRO STM and RF 85mm F2 MACRO IS STM lenses are prime examples, offering a 0.5x magnification factor for macro shots at their closest focus distances.

For more, see our guides to choosing kit for getting started with macro photography and the best lenses for wildlife photography.



Written by Matthew Richards, Natalie Denton and Marcus Hawkins