Kathleen Reeder's guest appearances

Kathleen Reeder

PhotoSpark

Alan Hess

Meghan Ely

Rachel Greiman

Erin Brant

Chris Dowd

Monica Royal

Don Sheffler

Bethel Nathan

Lauren Nygard

Adam Fried

Catie Stephens

Derek Chad

Braden Drake

Leon Sandoval

Tracy Petrucci

OwlTail

This episode was so much fun to record... we could have recorded hours upon hours of content for you guys! Kathleen Reeder is a photographer, educator, and author specializing in wildlife photography! She chatted with Kate &amp; Ashley about wildlife photography, and told some awesome animal stories! If you've ever fantasized about photographing big cats on a safari in Africa, or if you're just thinking of taking a trip to your local zoo, this is a great episode for you! Here are some of our favorite tips about achieving great images of wildlife from Kathleen!  Our Favorite Wildlife Photography Tips  Get technical. Wildlife photography is definitely going to give you a chance to test your skills using the manual mode on your camera. The entire trifecta of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed play a huge role in being successful and getting great shots. Starting with shutter speed, you'll typically want a pretty quick speed to allow for zooming without camera shake, as well as any movements the animal may make. Since this should typically be no less than 1/focal length of your lens, it will likely be pretty fast (as you're going to most likely be shooting with long lenses). You also might be shooting from far away or through a fence (like at a zoo), so shooting wide open with a low aperture is a great way to make a fence disappear. Lastly, you'll obviously want your ISO to be as low as possible but high enough to expose correctly with the high shutter speeds. Check your gear. As portrait/wedding photographers, a lot of us carry cute camera bags, which is great for most shoots, but not necessary good for wildlife photography. The lenses tend to be larger and heavier for this genre of photography, so you might want to consider using a backpack instead. A backpack will also allow you to keep all gear on-hand and easy to reach (with no risk of something trampling or eating your bag (I recently had a goat eat a huge chunk out of my shirt in a manner of about 3 seconds so I'm very sensitive to this right now!), and allows you to move around quickly as needed. Also, we don't always use tripods in portrait photography but they're super important in wildlife photography. I mean... have you seen the size of some of those lenses?! Speaking of lenses... you'll want some pretty big ones! Kathleen gave us some hints about ideal starting lenses for wildlife photography... for Nikon she likes the 80-400 lens, and for Canon she likes the 100-500. Both are decently light and good walk around lenses to use to photograph animals! Like always... it's all about lighting! Ok, maybe not ALL about lighting. But lighting is very important in wildlife photography! Kathleen prefers to photograph bears early in the morning, as the higher the sun gets in the sky, the harder it is to see the contrast between their fur and their eyes. This is the rule for most dark-furred animals! Also, cloudy days are GREAT for wildlife photography because you're basically shooting in a natural soft box. Lastly, Kathleen suggests bringing a flash along to pop the colors a bit, and make your subject stand out from the background!     Seriously, we aren't exaggerating when we say we could have chatted with Kathleen all day! She had some AWESOME stories to tell too (listen to hear her bear &amp; hyena stories!), so this is definitely an episode worth downloading!  Relevent Links  www.kathleenreeder.com Lions, Tigers, &amp; Bears (Alpine, CA) Triple D Game Farm  Download from iTunes Here Download from iTunes Here

This episode was so much fun to record... we could have recorded hours upon hours of content for you guys! Kathleen Reeder is a photographer, educator, and author specializing in wildlife photography! She chatted with Kate &amp; Ashley about wildlife photography, and told some awesome animal stories! If you've ever fantasized about photographing big cats on a safari in Africa, or if you're just thinking of taking a trip to your local zoo, this is a great episode for you! Here are some of our favorite tips about achieving great images of wildlife from Kathleen!  Our Favorite Wildlife Photography Tips <ol> <li>Get technical. Wildlife photography is definitely going to give you a chance to test your skills using the manual mode on your camera. The entire trifecta of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed play a huge role in being successful and getting great shots. Starting with shutter speed, you'll typically want a pretty quick speed to allow for zooming without camera shake, as well as any movements the animal may make. Since this should typically be no less than 1/focal length of your lens, it will likely be pretty fast (as you're going to most likely be shooting with long lenses). You also might be shooting from far away or through a fence (like at a zoo), so shooting wide open with a low aperture is a great way to make a fence disappear. Lastly, you'll obviously want your ISO to be as low as possible but high enough to expose correctly with the high shutter speeds.</li> <li>Check your gear. As portrait/wedding photographers, a lot of us carry cute camera bags, which is great for most shoots, but not necessary good for wildlife photography. The lenses tend to be larger and heavier for this genre of photography, so you might want to consider using a backpack instead. A backpack will also allow you to keep all gear on-hand and easy to reach (with no risk of something trampling or eating your bag (I recently had a goat eat a huge chunk out of my shirt in a manner of about 3 seconds so I'm very sensitive to this right now!), and allows you to move around quickly as needed. Also, we don't always use tripods in portrait photography but they're super important in wildlife photography. I mean... have you seen the size of some of those lenses?! Speaking of lenses... you'll want some pretty big ones! Kathleen gave us some hints about ideal starting lenses for wildlife photography... for Nikon she likes the 80-400 lens, and for Canon she likes the 100-500. Both are decently light and good walk around lenses to use to photograph animals!</li> <li>Like always... it's all about lighting! Ok, maybe not ALL about lighting. But lighting is very important in wildlife photography! Kathleen prefers to photograph bears early in the morning, as the higher the sun gets in the sky, the harder it is to see the contrast between their fur and their eyes. This is the rule for most dark-furred animals! Also, cloudy days are GREAT for wildlife photography because you're basically shooting in a natural soft box. Lastly, Kathleen suggests bringing a flash along to pop the colors a bit, and make your subject stand out from the background!</li> </ol>    Seriously, we aren't exaggerating when we say we could have chatted with Kathleen all day! She had some AWESOME stories to tell too (listen to hear her bear &amp; hyena stories!), so this is definitely an episode worth downloading!  Relevent Links <ul> <li><a href="http://www.kathleenreeder.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.kathleenreeder.com</a></li> <li><a href="https://lionstigersandbears.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lions, Tigers, &amp; Bears (Alpine, CA)</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.tripledgamefarm.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Triple D Game Farm</a></li> </ul> <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/photosparkshow/Episode-66_Kathleen_Reeder_Wildlife.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Download from iTunes Here</a> <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/photosparkshow/Episode-66_Kathleen_Reeder_Wildlife.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Download from iTunes Here</a>

Episode 66: Wildlife Photography with Kathleen Reeder