Beautiful Bee-Eater

This tiny but beautiful bird is the Little Bee-Eater (Merops pusillus), seen here perched on a reed stem along the banks of the Zambezi River in Zambia.

For more about this bee-eater and details of how the photograph was taken from a boat on the river, see Little Bee-Eater Perched on Reed Stem.

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.