NATURE, WILDLIFE AND LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

It is true, nature photography presupposes bulky and heavy equipment, especially if you devote yourself to all the fields of the same, which are macro, landscape and animals both from the shed and in photo hunting. Let's say that there is no such thing as the perfect photographic equipment, because every photographer has his or her own personal needs, which depend not only on budget but also on many other factors such as quality, flexibility, weight and bulk, etc., and everyone seeks his or her ideal compromise. Compromise that a beginner has to find in stages, step by step, understanding what his needs are. I tend to suggest starting with an APSC kit, which is less expensive in both camera body and lenses than full format. A long focal length lens is still necessary and my suggestion goes for a zoom lens around 150-600. Then a zoom starting from 18 up to mid-telephoto, with macro capability, is sufficient to initially cover all genres of nature photography. If you want to photograph quite seriously you then need a good tripod that is very stable and possibly not too heavy associated with an equally stable head.

Two factors have made it possible to obtain images that until some 20 years ago only very experienced photographers could boast of. The first is the advent of digital photography, which has extremely reduced costs and given anyone the ability to easily correct a photograph in postproduction. The second factor is the technological advancement of cameras. I am referring in particular to the ability to expose at high iso with low noise, but also to the increased dynamics of sensors and advances in autofocus. Extremely fast burst shooting may be useful only in certain situations and in any case is less important than in sports photography. How much does the equipment weigh in the final result? My view, shared by many good photographers, is that it matters relatively little. All that is needed is a modern camera, even an amateur one, a long focal length lens not necessarily a large aperture, and an all-purpose lens. What matters is technique, experience, knowing the subject you want to photograph, and lots and lots of passion and will, to set out at night and photograph at dawn, to photograph still in hot or cold wet weather, to explore new areas, getting dirty and struggling with pounds on your shoulders. However, there is also another, very important factor, which I will discuss later.

I currently have a Sony A1 body, a 16-35/2.8 as an extreme wide-angle lens, also useful for night photography, having a maximum aperture at 2.8. As an all-purpose lens I have a 24-105/4. I then have a 70-200/4 macro also useful for landscape details and a 200-600/5.6-6.3 for animal photography. With this equipment I can cover the opportunities that come my way very well.

In the wildlife field, ethics are very important and would be the first thing I would dwell on when talking to a beginner (and unfortunately not only). Doing wildlife photography necessarily means getting close to wild animals and it is essential to disturb them as little as possible, especially during the very delicate nesting period. It sounds like a very simple concept, but unfortunately ignorance or irresponsibility leads to very serious situations, such as the final abandonment of the nest. Those who do wildlife photography should be, first and foremost, lovers of nature in all its aspects. Unfortunately, the adolescent urge of some to exhibit the particular shot leads to those situations whose consequences I unfortunately see all too often. One cannot count the number of times I have missed the shot so as not to disturb the animal, but I am glad, happy about it, certainly not regretful. The problem, however, lies upstream: one should make school children much more aware of wildlife culture. Such important teaching should not be left to parents, in most cases quite ignorant on the subject.

I am an unconditional lover of nature, all its aspects and mysteries. Photography is my personal dedication to its beauty, alive and wild, and technique is the means to express it in all its splendor.

Generally when I plan to photograph a landscape, I first research about the area, check on apps such as Google Earth or others the sun and shadow patterns, wait for the best weather conditions, leave at night and arrive at the location just before sunrise to photograph it during the golden hours, that is, those tens of minutes of sunrise and sunset where the light takes on a golden hue, but I also love the blue hours, when the sky takes on a deep blue hue in the frame. If I am traveling, I still check the aspects mentioned above and try to arrive at the location under the most favorable conditions.

As for the animals, one has to distinguish whether the location is in fixed or mobile shed. In the former case I almost always arrive at dawn or just before and wait for hours with a great deal of patience for events to unfold, whereas if I am mobile I certainly move with camouflaged clothing and a camouflage net and/or a portable shed. This assumes the drudgery of carrying several kilograms of gear across trails that are also often muddy or semi-slushy, so rubber boots definitely come in handy. In winter the cold and damp weather tests the willingness to wait motionless for an animal to pass, but even in summer the heat, mugginess and insects make waiting sometimes unbearable, especially under a small portable shed that quickly acts as a greenhouse effect.

Waiting is often nerve-wracking because of the conditions mentioned above. Often one stands for hours waiting while nothing moves in the territory, but one cannot relax, one must always keep observing, because, suddenly, an interesting subject might fly by, so one must always have the camera ready with the right settings. There are situations, however, where concentration is really put to the test: for example, it happens that a bird stops on a twig and after photographing it statically, you want to film it even as it takes off. Sometimes it takes off again after a few moments, other times it may take off even after several tens of minutes. Waiting for it to take off with your eye inside the viewfinder for several minutes is not at all easy, and it can happen that you lose concentration by missing the moment of take-off.

Certainly experience and knowledge of the animal are really important, from the animal's posture and attitude one can predict its intent.

True. It is most important to know the subjects you photograph. In order not to miss interesting shots you have to know their habits, their movements, their habitual and hunting areas. This is where experience and study of different species counts so much. You may get a lucky shot, but if you want to routinely take home interesting photographs, this knowledge is necessary. It allows one not only to take better photographs, but also to understand what a certain animal is doing and why it is doing it. One can, for example, recognize the pre-mating phase, the moments before an involo or capture of prey. For recognition, I make use of an excellent paper guide to the birds of Europe, North Africa and the Near East. There is never an end to learning, both photographically and about nature, but I admit that I feel more like a photographer who loves what he photographs and where he photographs it.

Here is the other important factor: postproduction. Today all cameras take good pictures, and anyone with a little technique and experience and under favorable conditions can take a good picture. But there then you stop, inevitably. The next step, particularly in landscape photography, is postproduction, which allows you to achieve results impossible even with the best of cameras. All professional landscape photographers do postproduction. It is what makes the difference between a good photo and a great one. What few people know is that postproduction has always been there, from the dawn of photography. Experienced and professional photographers used to do it in the darkroom - Ansel Adams was a master of this, just to mention a well-known author - today it is done in a clear room, that is, on a PC. At that time photography was only for experts and professionals, and little was known about field production and postproduction techniques. Today everyone takes photographs, even with a smartphone, and the term photoshopping has become commonly used. But the concept is still the same: real photography is done in production and postproduction, and the ability to postproduce is one of the factors that make the difference between the casual photographer and the expert or professional.

More interesting would be to understand what postproduction is and what is the line between processing a raw file and photomontage or manipulation of a photo, just to use a very common derogatory term. The forums and photography circles are full of it with discussions on this topic. For me the answer is simple: all that can be done in post production for a serious photo contest is the simple processing of the file, the rest is a gradual transition to photomontage. In photo contests, in fact, in case of awarding prizes one must also send the raw files to check that no parts of the photograph have been added, removed or varied. Only the controls of saturation, contrast, brightness, sharpness, and a few others, i.e., the main jpg processing parameters of the camera, are allowed. Thus, double exposures, HDR, blending, etc., not to mention cloning, content-based fills, etc., are prohibited. This applies to serious contests, but all this, however, does not preclude the use of additional and more refined techniques that are not photography. Excluding documentary photography, sharing Ansel Adams and the greatest masters of photography, photography is art, and everything is allowed to achieve an image that is beautiful and pleasing. Ten painters will "photograph" the same landscape in ten different ways, according to their style, skill and technique. The same is true with photography. The end is the final image, production and postproduction are only the means.

In animal photography, postproduction is less important, but certainly not absent. The important thing is that the subject is not "manipulated," but removing a blade of grass, a twig, or blurring the background a bit are common techniques to make the image more interesting. I know (few) good photographers who don't do postproduction, but I don't know poor photographers who know how to do good post production. So, going back to advice for beginners for a moment, I say don't spend so much on photographic equipment, but study, study, and study more technique in both production and postproduction. And here, unfortunately, it takes just as much passion and willpower.

Not everyone knows that the sharpness curve of lenses as a function of apertures is a curve comparable to a parabola, and at the apex are the intermediate apertures, from f/5.6 to f/11, with some exceptions. These are the apertures that should always be used. If I want a good depth of field I will use closed apertures at about f/11, conversely I will open the aperture in the vicinity of f/5.6, unless I am using super bright telephotos, where very good sharpness can be obtained even at more open apertures.

My photography is typically of landscape and animals, particularly birdlife, and only secondarily do I do macro, or rather close up photography. To do real macro photography you need special equipment, such as rack and pinion tripod heads, which are extremely precise but also heavy. It is a further specialization of nature photography, which is certainly fascinating, but not in my interests for now.

I sincerely congratulate you, you have perfectly captured the essence of my photography! Bird photography is in a sense stressful, you go from long sessions of waiting to moments of even extreme action, such as catching a small and fast passerine like the kingfisher in flight. In a few moments one has to change the camera settings "from memory," without taking one's eye off the viewfinder and be very ready to shoot, knowing full well that perhaps the next pass will come after another interminable waiting period. Here I photograph the life of nature, alive, wild and unfortunately also cruel. Landscape photography is perhaps the exact opposite. Here I try to photograph the beauty of nature, through a kind of my own personal contemplation. In both cases, however, I feel an intense emotion when I photograph, whether dmiring a bird on a twig or a majestic, colorful sunset. I often become enchanted and almost enraptured, and my intent is to record my emotions and, at least in part, bring them to life for others through my images. I could never, however, have the same passion if I did not have such admiration and wonder for nature.

New York City is extremely photogenic, especially in the evening when colorful lights illuminate the city. Urban photography is certainly not my kind of photography, but at certain times I have felt some beautiful emotions. The warm lights of sunset setting and enveloping the metropolis, taken perhaps from a vantage point that is new to me, such as the top of a skyscraper, allowed me to relive those moments of awe and wonder that I generally only experience in the midst of nature. From a photographic point of view, an extremely man-made landscape, such as a metropolis, is not so different from a bucolic landscape. The rules are the same, both in terms of exposure, technique and composition. There are always the usual marked differences in exposure between sky and ground that must be carefully measured.

Photo archive management has its importance and I personally find it the most tedious part of photography. I manage the files within folders named by year, month, and place of shooting, except for some sites where I go most often and for which I have individual folders named without year and month. This way I always quickly find the photo I am looking for. As for security, I have an 8TB external SSD drive for photos synchronized with Amazon Photos for remote backup.

In Emilia Romagna we have the Lipu Oasis in Torrile (PR), which is the largest heronry in northern Italy. Not too far away is the Cronovilla Oasis, near the town of Traversetolo (PR), where, among others, it is very easy to photograph kingfishers. Then there is the Tivoli-Manzolino Oasis, which is only half an hour from Bologna, where I live. It is not very large, but it is well maintained and is frequented by animals.