THE APPRENTICE
SHOOT WITH A PRO
This month Canon pro Paul Fowlie showed our Apprentice Tom how to take atmospheric wildlife portraits even when it’s raining!
CANON PRO
NAME: PAUL FOWLIE
CAMERA: CANON EOS R5
PAUL HAS been a pro wildlife and landscape photographer since 2010. Based in Yorkshire, he runs photography workshops in the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, Scotland and Scandinavia, and is also the author of A Year with Nature: A Photographic Guide to Wildlife. We met up with him in Yorkshire to visit some of his scenic bird and wildlife hides to see what wildlife we could shoot on an unusually rainy summer’s day! To book one of Paul’s hides or workshops and see his inspiring images, visit his website at www.paulfowliephotography.co.uk
APPRENTICE
NAME: TOM LECHTHALER
CAMERA: CANON EOS R5
BASED IN Manchester, Tom has worked in the events industry for 25 years, although has currently taken a break to retrain as a HGV driver. Photographing landscapes is his main passion that he uses to unwind in his spare time when not working. While he’s a very capable landscape photographer, he has a love for all things outdoors and was keen to learn more about wildlife photography, which he sometimes struggles with. We paired him up for the day with Canon pro Paul Fowlie at his wildlife hides in Yorkshire to show him the ropes.
TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT
Paul set up Tom to shoot in Manual mode with a high frame rate to capture better animal portraits
TOM SHOOTS in Manual mode when photographing his landscapes and Paul recommended he stayed in this mode for wildlife shots too. The weather was rainy and overcast so the light levels were fairly constant throughout the day. He suggested starting with an aperture of around f/8 for good sharpness with the owls and boosting the ISO until he had the desired shutter speed. Usually 1/2000 sec would be good for wildlife, but with more stationary subjects around 1/400 sec is usually fast enough.
FOR LANDSCAPES you usually have the luxury of taking your time and firing off just a single exposure. Wildlife photography can be a lot more fast-paced and frantic, so a high speed burst, such as the top 20fps continuous modes on both Tom and Paul’s Canon EOS R5 cameras is ideal. A faster burst rate gives you more chance of catching the best moment, and hopefully more than one frame will be sharp and in focus too.
EXPERT INSIGHT
PAUL HAS set up signs, logs and tree stumps in front of his wildlife hides. This is a convenient place for the birds and wild animals to perch on, and also makes for more interesting and photogenic shots. He’s screwed some plastic containers onto the rear side of his perches where he can top up the food so that these don’t appear in the shots. Any small bits o
