New To Photography/Photographing Deer

[Canon PowerShot A540]

Hello I'm New To Photography And Was Wondering If Some Of You Expert Shutter Bugs Could Help Me Out. I'm Trying To Get Some Really Great Photos Of The Deer In My Area. My Camera Is A Canon PowerShot A540 To See The Full Specs Go To http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelTechSpecsAct&fcategoryid=145&modelid=12942
Thank You Very Much For You Help! :)

[chrisgarrett]

The trick with wildlife is more about getting close (safely) and observing, with a little luck, rather than technical or equipment concerns. Get your settings right before the animal does something interesting, fire off some test shots.

Time of day is a tricky one, often the rule is early or late to get nice golden hour light but wildlife doesn't always follow the same camera tip blogs as we do ;) You need to know what time they tend to appear. Knowing their behaviour or pure luck gets the best shots.

My preference is for the animal to be big in the picture while keeping some habitat context. Getting some interaction between mothers and young is always guaranteed to melt hearts. Main thing is to be quiet and patient. Find a good comfortable spot, use a tripod if you have one and can be in a busy spot. Fire off loads of shots and keep shooting. You can edit out the rubbish later.

Best tip of all, ask people who have grabbed great shots in the area some tips, especially where to stand and what time of day.

[Canon PowerShot A540]

What Settings Would Be Ideal For Me When Shooting Photos Of Deer:confused:

[chrisgarrett]

Not knowing your particular camera I am not sure what settings you can choose but presumably there will be a "sports" mode to allow rapid fire shots and capture fast movement? If the animals are relatively stationary you could try a portrait to capture the beauty of the creatures, blurring the background.

[Canon PowerShot A540]

My Camera Is A Canon PowerShot A540 I really Appreciate The Help You're Giving Me.:D

[alissasanderson]

Speaking from experience here...

If you don't have a pretty powerful zoom, you'll need to be really (and I mean really) close. Are you photographing tame deer? That would be ideal. If you're after wild deer, I'd recommend a ground blind or low tree stand and camo. Then just set your camera for the lighting conditions you're in (wooded, shady area; open sunny field, etc...) and be ready. If there's a multi-shot function on your camera I'd use that, and just hold the button down and fire away.

I borrowed a friend's tree stand this past fall, and got in before sunrise. I waited and waited. At the time I only had the kit lens on my RebelXT, so not much zoom. Some does came out right after sunup, and they were fairly close and not moving fast, but my telephoto wasn't powerful enough to really capture any detail. I'm going again this spring now that I have a better lens:)

[NaturesPixel]

from experience on my minolta Z5.. DONT use the digital zoom of your camera all it is doing is blowing it up.. its not taking you any close to the image and you loose quality... if you must use the digital zoom you NEED to use a tripod.. unless you have near perfect control of your hand shake

[paul]

I've tried photography animals a few times, the best was when I was at the zoo last week. Pretty much take your pick of what animal you want to capture.

For me this was the tigers. I would suspect that taking their picture would be simlar to any other animal.

They were always on the move, so I tended to wait for them to turn around and come down towards me (I was behind glass so was pretty safe). I switched the camera to multiple burst mode so that I could capture them while running. This one below was probably the best one that came out.

Flickr - Tiger (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/155/369130569_1ff1b986e4.jpg)

My advise would be the same as others, get in close and take as many pictures as possible

[Canon PowerShot A540]

Thank You Very Much Everyone And Beautiful Shot Paul ;) l I Hope I Can Get To The Zoo Sometime.

[paul]

Thanks, I think I was more excited than the little kids as it was the first time I've ever been to a zoo and I had my camera.

[Canon PowerShot A540]

I Just Got Some Great Deer Photos Today If You Want To See Go To My
MySpace I'm Uploading Images From My Start Right Now:D;) @ http://www.myspace.com/shutterbug1986