Image Stabilized Lenses for Wildlife Photography
When photographing wild animals, a telephoto lens is essential as you can’t normally get close enough to use a standard or wide angle lens because:
a) it’s too dangerous getting close to animals like big cats, elephants, hippos, buffalos and others;
b) you’re in the animal’s habitat and it’s not good to unduly disturb or agitate wild animals.
If you’re on foot, you’ll definitely want to keep your distance, so will need a powerful telephoto lens to fill the frame. When walking in the bush it’s also difficult using a tripod, as you have to cart it with you and you’ll usually not have the time to set it up — which means hand-holding the camera and lens.
If you’re photographing from a game drive or safari vehicle, you can get closer to animals, but again will find it difficult using a tripod from within the vehicle. This once more will require hand-holding of the camera.
Fortunately many of today’s prime and zoom telephoto lenses have image stabilization (or vibration reduction), making them easier to hand-hold. Cameras from Olympus and Sony use in-camera technology to counter camera shake, rather than including the technology in their lenses.
See Canon IS Lenses a Boon for Wildlife Photography to find out more about Canon’s IS technology and why it’s of such benefit to wildlife photographers.
Tags: Photography, Wildlife
Photography | scotch | 
December 15, 2009 5:03 pm
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