Wildlife Photography Without a Supertelephoto

Even though my longest lens is a 70-200mm f/4, I’m still a big fan of wildlife photography. What’s not to like? Sitting around for hours without any luck, cursing your autofocus system, getting acquainted with mosquitos and other bugs while you wait…

Well, it’s not all perfect. But when everything goes right, and you do get that shot, the reward is amazing. Not to mention that wildlife photography can be done almost anywhere in the world, since there are animals everywhere.

The only problem is that supertelephoto lens.

While lens manufacturers have done a good job in recent years making less expensive supertelephotos, even the cheapest 400mm+ lenses are going to set you back several hundred dollars. That’s why I made this video. With some creativity, it’s possible to take good wildlife photos without a supertelephoto lens – even without a telephoto at all. You may have to limit the types of subjects you can shoot, but there’s no limit to the quality of the photos you can get.

Spencer-Cox-Pelican-Moon
NIKON D7000 + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 100, 1/320, f/3.5
Spencer-Cox-Resting
NIKON D800E + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 100, 1/800, f/3.2
Spencer-Cox-2021-028-15-43-_NZ76428
NIKON Z 7 + 70-200mm f/4 @ 200mm, ISO 400, 1/800, f/4.0
Intentional composition of a crab
NIKON D7000 + 24mm f/1.4 @ 24mm, ISO 250, 1/200, f/7.1
Spencer-Cox-Anhinga
NIKON D7000 + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 800, 1/500, f/2.8

As you can see, I took the photos above at everything from 24mm to 200mm, mostly at 105mm. Not that there’s anything wrong with using a supertelephoto if you have one – but if you don’t, be assured that you can still take good wildlife shots!

I hope that you enjoyed this video. If you liked it and want to follow my future videos, you can subscribe to my Youtube channel here. I’m posting weekly videos as I try to grow my channel, and there’s more good content like this coming soon.

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