Surely the best answer must be to get closer. If you rely on long lenses
all
the time, you are losing a lot of opportunities to make use of different
perspective, and your photographs will all tend to look the same. In my
opinion, the best generalist wildlife photographer is Frans Lanting. His
photographs show a great range of perspectives on the creatures he
photographs, and he gets close.
Bob
That's true. He's also in the fulltime business of wildlife photography,
n'est pas? The problem is I'm not Dr, Doolittle and the wildlife does not
understand that concept. A person that has 8-12 hours to spend out in the
field on a regular basis to observe and learn animal/avian behavior, and
just be there that amount of time, may very well get close enough not to
need a longer lens.
I suspect most of us can only devote minutes, or several hours at most, at a
time. The place where I observe the most bird behavior is on the way
to/from work. Generally I have only 15 - 20 minutes to spare on each side
of the day, the light might not be right, and unless I'm going to make
myself late to work or late getting home, I won't be getting extremely close
unless I'm very lucky.
Tom C.
