The Camera Cafe Show
Dave: Spanning the globe to bring great photographers and their experiences directly to you. It's 11 am. in Spain, 6 pm. here in Japan, and 11 am. in our guest's home today in Kilgali, Rwanda. That means it's time for the Camera Cafe Show. Brought to you by a professional photographer, Tom Jacob, and photography enthusiast Dave Payne.
Hello there, Tom. Would you like to welcome our special guests and introduce them to our listeners?
Tom: Welcome Dave, and welcome everyone to yet another episode of our Camera Café Show, and the first one about nature and bird photography. And we start with a bang, right Dave, with our guest today, all the way from Rwanda, Will Wilson.
Most of you will know him already from his wonderful work he posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or you might even have a book of him at home. He's an accomplished bird photographer, conservationist, writer, and a wonderful dad.
Will, good morning!
Will: Good morning. Thank you very much, both Tom and Dave. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
Tom: How are things there in Rwanda, Will?
Will: It's good to be fair. The rainy season is through, but unlike a lot of places we get maybe a morning of rain and then the afternoons brighten up a bit. So, there's always good stuff. It's a good place to be.
Tom: It's a good place to be and not only for photography, of course. Will, start maybe by telling us a bit about yourself and how you decided to become a nature photographer.
Will: Cool. Okay. I currently live in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, with my wife and young daughter, but I spent my formative years in the British army, joining at 18 straight out of school and then leaving 22 years later. I initially served in the infantry before specializing in intelligence collection.
My photography journey, though, started in 2011. My wife and I went on our first African safari, and I left our point and shoot camera at home. I tried to use an iPhone and a pair of binoculars to photograph the wildlife we encountered, and you can guess the standard of the images I managed to get.
However, our guide was a photographer, and the images he took really sparked my imagination. So, returning to the UK, I bought my first DSLR, and my photography journey began. The decision to become a wildlife or nature photographer happened a lot later. Probably wasn't actually until we arrived in Rwanda in March 2021.
Prior to that, my focus had been a lot broader landscape, street, larger wildlife. I started a bachelor's degree in photography and was a bit worried when I realized all my peers had found their focus in photography. Pets, weddings, events, portraiture and product photography, and I hadn't so when I asked my tutor, he said not to worry, keep doing what I was doing, and when I found my area, I would have the Midas touch, my images would turn to gold.
So, fast forward to us arriving in Rwanda, and COVID lockdowns were still a thing, so I spent lots of time photographing the visits to my garden with 30 plus birds. That, plus the dawn chorus of birdsong the greet every day, had a profound effect on me. The more I observed and learned, the more fascinated I became by our feathered friends, I think this works though, with all areas of photography, like the more, you know, about your subject, the better images you're going to create.
What I really did think really didn't think were transferable skills at the time from my military. I now incorporate into my wildlife photography. So, for example, how I was taught to stand and hold a rifle as well as how I was taught to shoot moving targets. I now utilize to hold my camera and photograph birds in flight.
Moreover, how I was taught to locate enemy forces. So, shape, shadow, movement, color, silhouette. I now use to find birds and wildlife. The resulting images I put on, I put on social media and the catalyst for organizations to get in touch with me to work with them, as well as people reaching out for photography workshops.
So in a nutshell, that's how I've come to be where I am now.
Tom: It's a long journey Will. When you say in your garden, the pictures we see online, you will go out somewhere to find a specific bird or mostly you can find in your garden?
Will: So great question. So no, I don’t go out in my garden now. The book I wrote and published recently, I've traveled extensively across Kigali initially because of restrictions during Covid, but now with the second book I'm traveling across Rwanda to photograph different bird behaviors.
So, what's great about the bird life here in Rwanda though is it's not just the diversity of birds, so it's home to over 710 different species of birds, it's also the density of those species, so unlike in some places you'll just see one of the species, you'll see a flock, you'll see a group, or there'll be more sightings than normal. So that kind of is one of the awesome things about Rwanda and its birds. So yes, my garden started it off but no, now I move across Rwanda.
Tom: Your garden must be amazing colorful, because if I look outside here, I can only see little brown birds. So, it's not really inviting to shoot them.
Will: You make a really, really interesting point, actually. So, there's recent studies being done on the coloration of birds and where they sit on the equator compared to their cousins further north and south.
And, the research has shown that birds within the tropics are actually brighter. And not just within the spectrum of color that we can see, but also in ultraviolet, the ones we can't see. So, the little brown birds that you can see, some of them will be brightly colored, but in a spectrum of color that you can't actually view with your naked eye.
Dave: Amazing. Will, one question, you were talking about shooting birds in your garden and now, you know, you're going out to shoot them. Is Rwanda on a major bird migratory route? I'm just curious.
Will: Yeah, it is. And so, it's on a migratory route, not just for the inter African species that migrate from north to south or south to north, depending on the time of year, but also those coming from Europe and Asia coming down to Southern Africa.
So, Rwanda is situated slap bang central, known as the heart of Africa for really good reason. It's got birds coming throughout over and across as well as over 500 different resident species as well.
Dave: Wow. So, it must give you a huge variety to shoot with.
Will: Exactly that. And I think Tom's part of his question there, do I go out and just go for a specific bird?
I have done, but now, especially with the book I'm doing at the moment, is looking at bird behavior. So, I'm actually after the behavior of the bird rather than just the single bird. So that's interactions between the different species, courtship displays, nesting also birds in flight, but also then feeding strategies as well.
So, it's quite a broad spectrum and actually it's interesting because birdwatchers, there's the guys that have, or girls that have, massive lists and just want to tick off and go find a different species. Where I'm more on the other side of that spectrum.
It will quite happily look at that little brown bird in Tom's garden and just watch it interact and how it behaves, how it feeds, how it interacts with its own species, but also with other species as well. So that's kind of what flicks my switch, more the behavior side of it.
Tom: Will, I'm very willing to change places for a week if you want to watch little brown birds in my house!
Will: Yep, I'm up for it, dude. I'm up for it, always!
Tom: So, Will, you're based now in Rwanda, which we can see from your amazing pictures. Do you see yourself remaining in Rwanda or maybe exploring some new places in the future?
Will: So, my family came to Rwanda because of my wife's work. She works for the British government, currently at the British High Commission in Kigali. Prior to that, we lived in Sudan in Khartoum, my wife worked at the British Embassy there. So, we'll be in Rwanda for the next two years at least. After that, we're not entirely sure where we're going. I won't lie though, I've fallen for Rwanda's wildlife, Rwanda and her people, so leaving won't be easy.
But wildlife photography as a profession has allowed me and seen me travel quite extensively across Rwanda, but also then across the wider region as well. So, exploring's there. Where? Don't know next. Sounds good.
Dave: If you could pick a new location, what would you choose?
Will: That's a really good question. So, I, my, my favorite continent is without doubt, Africa, the African continent, just the diversity of landscapes, environments culture, people.
It's just blows my mind. So anywhere in Africa, and I'll be a happy guy. That's not to say I wouldn't be happy to go other places, but anywhere on the African continent is where I'd love to be.
Dave: So Antarctica is probably not really high on your list.
Will: But there's penguins Dave. So yeah, it's definitely there. It's albatrosses, penguins, there's all sorts of stuff. Yeah, no, I'd go live there. It'd be rather cold, but yeah, I'm not sure my four-year-old daughter would be too impressed with the temperature. She's lived from the age of five months in Africa, so taking her to Antarctica might be a bit of a step change for her.
Tom: We'll go a bit on the technical side here Will. What do you consider to be essential gear for any aspiring nature or birth photographer or anything that you say: I bought it and I wish I hadn't bought it.
Will: Okay. Yeah. The gear question! Okay. So first of all, I'd say, I'd split bird and nature photography into a number of different categories and each has, I think, different gear requirements.
However, the common denominator for all of them though, is obviously the camera body and a lens. So for bird photography, focal length for me plays a big part. You should always want to minimize the impact you're having on your subjects or the birds you're photographing. So, you don't want to get close to them, and you don't want to disturb your subject.
They might be high up in the tree, a canopy of a tree, so when it comes to focal length, not all cameras are equal. If we use the crop sensor camera, for example, the crop factor needs to be accounted for as well. Let me explain to you listeners what I mean by that, for those who don't understand, if we use a 400 millimeter lens on a full frame camera, the largest, longest focal length we can have is 400 millimeters.
However, we put that same 400mm lens on a crop sensor camera, which has maybe a crop factor of x1.6. We times then that 400 by 1.6, giving us a focal length of 640mm. Or we could use a micro four thirds, which is a crop factor of 2. So, we're photographing 400mm by 2, giving us a focal length of 800mm. The focal length's key, but understanding what the impact of the crop sensor has on it.
But if we broaden that out and go wildlife safari wildlife photography, let's say, then a telephoto zoom lens, for me, is worth its weight in gold, as the action normally happens somewhere between 200 and 400 millimeters. But then we look at your images, Tom insect images, using a macro lens is obviously the essential piece of gear there. So, I think there's such variety, but it depends on what you're looking at.
And I guess the bit of gear that I wish I hadn't purchased, I don't think I can narrow it down to one. I wish I hadn't gone in too quickly when I first started and bought such a selection of lenses. Now I use literally three lenses for all the stuff I'm doing, and before I might have had five or six. My wish was I didn't hadn't jumped in and bought lots. I'd have actually gone for quality rather than quantity.
Tom: You're shooting Nikon, yes, Will?
Will: No, I'm a Canon guy. I'm a Canon guy.
Tom: Ah a Canon guy. I was going to ask, so your most used lens, maybe what is the 400mm or?
Will: No, it's a 200 to 400 with a x1.6 converter inside it. So, it takes me up to 560 millimeters. That's my key, it gets the birds, but then it's also got, for me, it's got the flexibility. And I think there's if you'd have asked me this probably two, three years ago, I had a 600 millimeter f4 and that was my go to lens.
But I think with advances in technology, the idea that you need a long prime lens because of the standard of the glass that you'd have got with that long standard prime lens actually isn't necessarily the case now. Advances in camera technology and also in lens quality has advanced so much that I'm not sure that's there anymore.
Tom: And a lot lighter, of course, than lugging around a 600 millimeter.
Will: Yep. Had to use a monopod and a gimbal head to get that out.
Tom: I suppose also in this case, we'll, the more you practice, the more you shoot, the closer you can get.
Will: Completely agree. If you ask me, honestly, my key thing isn't necessarily about the gear and I know photographers love their gear and I love my gear, but for me, photography is all about getting, seeing and photographing. It's all about learning and it was Henri Cartier Bresson that said, your first 10,000 photographs will be your worst.
Now, granted, he wasn't talking about mirrorless cameras with frame rates that we've got now, but I think it still holds true. You're going to go through that learning process of understanding what you're doing and getting into it. And so, it becomes instinctive how you see, how you operate and the creative nature that you pull into your photography,
Dave: Will, a follow up question. Something you just said really rang home. It's learning to see like for me I shoot a lot of black and white and you really have to learn black and white. For bird photography, what are you seeing? How do you train yourself? What do you look for?
Will: So, with birds, I look at, before I take any shot, I've got three things that are going through my head.
Number one is the subject. What's this, where is the subject? What's the lighting, or where is the lighting coming from? So, I know how that's going to impact on my shadows, how it's going to impact on the color of the bird, the coloration, and what it's going to do, and then also the background.
If I have those three things going through my head, then I know what I'm looking at. So, with regards to the background, I'm looking for an uncluttered background. So for example, if the lighting is or there's high contrast, then I might not, I'm not going to take that photograph because I know the resulting images isn't going to be what I'm after.
But then once you've got those three, then it's looking at composition and, for any type of photography, composition is key. And that's what I mean by how you see it, how you frame things. And we've all we've all learned and read about rule of thirds and all the different areas and composition, leading lines.
And those things play true within all our different elements of photography and understanding and getting to that. I think though, so there's lines that go throughout photography but there's also specific for wildlife. Unlike a lot of other elements of photography, sometimes within bird photography in nature, we can't actually move our position, so we can't change where the light's coming from. Unlike you can in a studio doing portrait photography, for example. So as long as you're aware of it, you can then compensate in other areas. So you can still get the image if you want to.
Tom: I was wondering, Will, is there any elusive bird you really want to get a shot off?
Will: There's a family of birds called the Turacos. And we get a number of them that come to Kigali called the Ross's turaco. And then there's an endemic species called the Rwenzori Turricot and the Black Bill Turricot, both of which are in Nyungwe National Park here in Rwanda.
Nyungwe National Park is a big montane forest. Thick, dense undergrowth with trails that you're moving through. And as I said, I'm writing a new book and I already have an image in my head of what I want the cover to be. And it's of either a Black Bill or a Rwenzori Turricot flying across this on top of the canopy.
So you're above it looking down. My four year old daughter calls this National Park, the broccoli forest as it looks like heads of broccoli all shoved together. This is my image in my head. So that's the one I want.
Tom: And if we talk outside of Africa, any birds you would really like to make a picture of?
Will: Yes. North America has got hummingbirds. We've got in Africa and Asia the sunbird, but I want to photograph hummingbirds. I'd love to do that. Hummingbirds don't matter what type, where, I just think they're awesome little creatures. Their adaptations to live the life they lead is just awesome to watch and see.
But then on the flip side, I'd love to go to South America and look at the ant birds in the Amazon. The big rainforest where these huge patrols of ants go, and basically these ant birds will follow them and they work in all, there's lots of different types or different species, and they work at different elevation. It depends on their hierarchical structure. So I’d love to see that also. Those are two I’ll give you.
Tom: I remember when I was in Cuba, I was mainly doing street photography and I found hummingbirds there. And man, I make pictures of bees, they are fast, but hummingbirds, it's a world to their own.
Will: They're awesome, right? Yes. They're 100% just amazing little creatures.Very fast. Very small. They're kind of, they're the same sort of size as the we get a kingfisher called the African pygmy kingfisher, which is roughly about the size of some of the larger hummingbirds. And they're great fun to try and photograph!
Dave: Will, you've got a couple of tremendous photos that I've seen in your Twitter account, Malachite Kingfisher. Is that right?
Will: That's correct.
Dave: You've got them in a full dive and it's just amazing to look at the way you were able to capture them. And I'm just curious, is it the size of your hand? Smaller? Larger?
Will: Yeah, these guys the Malachite Kingfish is between about 11 and 13 centimeters from the tip of its tail to the tip of its bill, or beak.
Shooting birds in flight I use two different, I guess, techniques. One is what I call an ambush method. So, I'll know where, for example, a kingfish returns or goes to a certain perch. I'll focus on the perch and wait for it to come back but leave enough room within my viewfinder and my aperture wide enough for a depth of view, when it will fly into my frame.
That's one way of doing it. It's called the ambush method and that's really good for small birds, largely because with such a long zoom or with focal length, trying to get such a small bird within there, as you try and catch it within flight is a whole lot harder.
So that kind of tracking idea of a larger bird in flight that you see coming from left to right across your horizon, they're easy to get and photograph and keep with.
So using those two different methods, you can normally get quite good shots, but the ambush method for smaller birds is a real good start point.
Dave: And the second method?
Will: Tracking method. I use that for the larger bird species or panning, things like that kind of idea. Where you're really slowing the shutter speed down and see it's nice on a horizontal plane going from left to right. There's no major movement between it, as in it's not going up and down and it's quite static, but it's coming across and that allows you to track with your camera and keep photographing.
Tom: Will, going a bit on another route here, because you are a bird photographer, how important do you see nature conservation in your photography and is this something you are personally active in?
Will: Great question, Tom. I think conservation in nature is critically important for bird photographers and, unfortunately, we've been tarnished by a few unethical ones that are too focused on getting the shot.
They don't think about the impact their presence is having on the birds. I mean, a prime example is birds nesting, or when they're nesting and disturbing them to get the photograph. That breaks me. But I also believe conservation is critical for the wildlife, the environment, and us humans.
Arguably, we're at a stage now where if we act, the planet and the wildlife have a chance to reset and recover. Birds are great indicator species, and their presence, decline, or absence can tell us a whole lot about the health of an environment, country, or even the planet. And so, the global bird population is steadily declining.
For some species, that decline is rapid. Two of the main threats are because of our own, us humans, our actions: loss of habitat and industrial scale use of pesticides for agriculture. And for me, this must change now. I am active in nature conservation. I support conservation organizations and work with them to highlight these issues and document some of the awesome work being done to address them.
This includes the Rwandan Government Conservation Projects to restore wetland habitats here in Rwanda. And I discuss these issues in my recently published book, Falling for the birds of Kigali.
Tom: Excellent. Dave, I think we could already forward maybe in this episode that we are planning another episode with Will about a more in-depth view of conservation, right?
Dave: Exactly what I was going to say. Will, we had a conversation before and this kind of came up, but the way you just described it, it would be wonderful if we could have you back for a second episode and let's focus on photographers and photography and the impact for conservation. I think it's huge because I tend to agree with you.
I think a lot of the species on this planet are rapidly coming to a tipping point. And if we don't step in, and wise up and take positive actions, it's going to be too late.
Will: Correct.
Dave: Would you like to like to get involved on that episode?
Will: Yeah, cool. Definitely. Love to. Yeah, absolutely. I think the ethical piece with photography, I think, is a key one as well.
And the impact we're having as photographers on the subjects we photograph. You guys might have seen on social media a picture of a common, European kingfisher. So bright fluorescent blue diving about to touch onto the water. And it went viral. And it's gone viral about how this guy went about getting the photograph.
He used a glass tank that he put into the water. Altered the sides so that it didn't impact the refraction and the kingfisher wouldn't have been able to see it. And put fish inside this tank and then put a perch not too far away from it, so the kingfisher would come onto it to then dive onto it.
And so that's the lure idea of getting a photograph, but that fails to take into account the impact of, let's say the kingfisher flies too deeply and it smashes its beak and will kill itself on the bottom of the tank. It misses and hits the side of the tank. There’re so many things that you're changing behavior just to get the photograph.
The second example is a guy called Alan Davis, who's a great bird watcher and he does a whole load of bird guides birding across globally. And he's based in North Wales where they do rock climbing on these rocks. These birds are protected in the UK, especially when they're nesting. And so this area of rock is closed off for rock climbers when they're nesting, no problem.
Alan was out, on down at the base of this and saw a photographer with what must have been probably a maximum of a 200mm lens. So not a large lens, really close, harassing these birds to try and get them to fly and flush them so he could photograph them in flight.
Absolutely horrendous behavior, but it's these types of behaviors that put us photographers in a really bad light when it comes to nature and wildlife photography.
Dave: Two comments real quick. Are you familiar with Joel Sartori? Tom suggested him to me and I did some research on him and he's got a project called the Photo Arc.
It's a 25-year documentary project to save species and habitat. I went to the site and I was looking at what they've got. And it seems like that is exactly right up your alley. And I think our conservation and photography impact episode is going to be a real important one. And I'd like to take this opportunity to invite our listeners to If you would like to hear more on what Will was just talking about with conservation, send us an email, drop us your thoughts.
What would you like to hear about? What particular elements of conservation do you think are important? Let us hear from you and we'll have Will kind of flesh out the picture for us.
Moving on let's, you said something earlier, Will, that was really great talking about what equipment. Can you share with our listeners who are considering going into bird photography, three tips on the essentials that they need starting out?
Will: Cool. Okay. Yeah, no problem, Dave. Can I go more than three? There'll be quick, there's a few more than three. I've got a few in my head.
So, my first one is be patient. You won't always get it right the first time. But there's always going to be a next time.
The second is move away from the auto modes on your camera. Take control of your camera. Get to know your camera and what it can and can't do. And what I mean by that, what it can do, how many frames per second have you got? What's your ISO, workable ISO range that you can work with before noise gets too much?
Next one is to enter what I call your basic go to settings into the camera when you first get it out of the bag. So, for example, mine are, I've set my shutter speed to 1200 for the second. I've put my aperture to a f6.3, and I'll put my ISO on automatic. I've got it in burst mode and continuous autofocus. I'll then take a test shot to see how that looks in the light that I'm working in. And if it is, I'm then good to go. And that, that coupled with a number of things we'll talk about in a sec, allows you to hopefully not miss opportunities when they present themselves.
And then I'd go on to get to know your camera settings and be able to adjust the aperture shutter speed and exposure compensation without having to look at the camera. When I teach photography workshops, I tell my clients when they're sitting down with their partner or family in the night, get the camera body out and start going through without looking. I'm going to adjust the aperture by one stop. I'm going to increase my shutter speed by two stops, and do it. Then look and make sure if you're getting it right. So, it allows you then to, again, get familiar with those go to settings. Stop, hopefully, stop missing those opportunities or those quick opportunities that present themselves.
Then the next thing would be to learn about your subject. What are their flight indicators with regards to birds, their feeding strategies, their preferred seasonal habitats, and their calls and songs, so you can locate them. And you can kind of understand their behavior.
I'll give you an example. Flight indicators. So a large majority of birds, before they take flight from a perch, will do a poop. And so, you know if they do that, within about 10 seconds, somewhere between 0 to 10, they're likely to take flight. And so, you can get ready to get capture that action shot prior to actually happening. And with all those kinds of in place, I think you're in a good start to then push forward.
Dave: You raised an interesting comment just a moment ago. Getting your ISO in a workable range. From your experience, can you share with our listeners what you feel a reasonable or workable ISO ranges for bird photography?
Will: So, Dave, I'd say it completely depends on your camera and the level of whether it's a straight in-camera shot, or it's an advanced camera, or a professional enthusiast camera.
That’s because of the sensitivity of the sensor, how big that sensor is will depend on how good it is at handling the ISO. But what I would say, I shoot with auto ISO and I leave my bracketing open and I let my camera do what it do its own thing. And the reason behind that is that prior, and when I was doing my BA in photography, and I think everything you learn and see and read is always keep your ISO low, keep it low.
I think advances in camera technology and editing software mean we can push our ISO boundaries further than we ever, ever before could and still get usable and workable images. And that's camera technologies within the camera, but also editing software. There’s Denoise software that you can put an image through and still get a workable image.
So, there isn't that working range largely depends on, for me, it depends on the camera body. And that depends on the camera, and you can then test it. And in certain lights, so in low light conditions, in bright light conditions, and you can see where it is.
I leave my auto ISO range open, you can then bracket. My ISO for the camera, for example, will only go up to ISO 6400 because anything over that is not workable for me. So it depends on the camera you’ve got.
Dave: Great point. You recommended something to me that really made me laugh when we were talking the last time, but I went out and I got it. And that's the Merlin app for listeners who are considering going into bird photography.
And you're overwhelmed or you just don't know what to do. Tell us a little bit about that Merlin app, because I was amazed by it.
Will: So,Merlin's a really good app. And it's linked with another app called eBird. I find both really, really useful. Merlin, for example, is a photo ID. So, what that means is, you download the app, you can then put the pack of the location or country you're in or area you're in and download on your phone. You then, with your camera, take a photograph of a bird that you're not entirely sure which it is. But you can then take a photo with your phone of the back of your camera and put it through this app and it will come up with a number of options that the bird could be.
And that allows you to make an easier identification. And as I say, Merlin is linked to eBird which is a great citizen science research project that is basically for checklists for birds, but it also allows you to explore different locations. So, for example, Dave, you're over in Japan, you can tap on the area within Japan you are and it will bring up all the hotspots for birds and what type of birds you should expect to see at those locations and the birds being sighted within the last seven days.
And so eBird's is used by us photographers, but also birders and by educators to understand. It's a global project. So all global sightings will go on and you'll be able to see migration routes of certain species. You'll be able to explore different locations. It's used by educators to teach, but it's also then used by researchers to understand locations of bird at different times of year and their migratory routes, so it's pretty cool.
Dave: Yeah, I got both. Well, I got Merlin and I was so impressed with it that I went back and downloaded eBird and it's through the Cornell University.
Will: Yeah, Cornell University. Lab of Ornithology.
Dave: Unbelievable. I downloaded the country app for Japan and I just looked at that app for an hour.
It's like, wow, these guys are coming. I'm not far from there, I should go over there. Oh, what's this? It's fascinating.
Like you said, the technology is taking away a lot of excuses from people not getting out to try bird photography,
Will: There you go. And you've got a start point, right?
Dave: Well, exactly. And that kind of brings up what I'd call our last question we'd like to end today's conversation with. For those people who are already into bird photography, maybe just a little or maybe they're starting out and they've been practicing.
What is one thing you'd recommend they should start doing, one thing they should stop doing and why?
Will: Okay, Dave, let me have a think about that. So, what they should start doing is being creative.
So if you can, if they're now photographing the birds perched on a branch in a tree, in a bush, try and look for bird behavior. Look at those interactions. Look at meaning, watchful behavior. Get creative and look for bird behavior.
Also look for birds in flight. If you could do the static bird, try and photograph birds in flight. If you've got birds in flight down, try going for panning, which is reducing your shutter speed. For bird in flight, I shoot anything between one thousand one two thousandth of a second to one five thousandth of a second for a kingfisher, let's say. With panning, we take our shutter speed down to one thirtieth of a second, one fiftieth of a second, one eightieth of a second, depending on the size of the bird and, and the speed of flight. So, that’s birds in flight.
Then look at black and white images, high key images, low key images, or even backlit images. So, get creative, start being creative with the photographs you're taking. Stop, and I'll mention again, stop worrying so much about ISO levels. As I said, for me, advances across our industry and our sector now means that we can push our ISO further than we could ever before.
An example I've photograph the national park I spoke about with you Tom, deep, thick primary jungle forest that you're going through. So really, really low light. And some of the images I'm taking with ISO is up to 25,600 and still getting workable images when I put them through Denoise editing afterwards and software. So don't worry so much about your ISO, get the photograph first and then have a look at your images. So those are the start and stop.
Dave: That's a great start and a wonderful stop to bring everything wrapped up. Is there anything else, we've covered a lot today, but anything you'd like to add?
Will: Anything I'd like to add? Yes. When we initially spoke, and you asked me to talk about myself and where I am as a nature photographer, I spoke about my wife and we're here because of my wife's work. And I just wanted to highlight one thing. So, my wife currently was is going through cancer treatment. In December last year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And so, she's actually back in the UK going through chemotherapy treatment at the moment.
And what's come, I think, into focus is the amount of different organizations that are doing awesome things for and helping and supporting people like my wife and going through that cancer treatment. And basically the organization that's helping my wife is called Macmillan Cancer Support. It has a number of nurses and they support and they helped us come up with a strategy with regarding to try and tell my young daughter, who's four now, about how her mom was poorly and ill and actually how to cope with that and go through it.
It's a really great organization. And it's an organization that I'm supporting myself, but if anyone wants to help and support, these are the guys or the organization that has been really helping me through this journey.
Dave: We will include Macmillan and their contact information in the show notes so that if you're so inclined, you can reach out and see what they need to help and what they need to support. It's one of the wonderful things about the photography community. We come together and we help each other.
We also have to help the people who are helping us and our families. So, look for that in the show notes. We'll make sure that we get it out there for you. Thank you so much, Will.
Will: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, as I say, it's been a pleasure.
Dave: This has been a wonderful conversation and your time and the wonderful insights you shared with us are really special.
And not to forget, we are going to have Will back for a second episode, diving into photography and conservation. So don't forget to keep an eye open for that and also let us know what topics you'd like us to touch on when we can round Will up again for another conversation. Thanks everybody.
Tom: Thanks again Will, we'll see you soon.
Will: You will do my friend. Thank you.
Dave: I have a whole new appreciation for bird photography after listening to Will's interview today. I already loved his photos, but to hear his passion and his approach, it added so many layers of understanding and interest for me personally. I really admire someone that can shoot bird photography the way Will does.
What about you there, amigo?
Tom: Amazing talk. It's always good that when you have an idea of how to shoot something, but then someone like Will lets you see it in a whole way, a new way or a new light. I thank him very much for this. Maybe I can see my tiny little brown birds in a new way. And I'm sure all our listeners have learned something today about him and about bird photography.
Dave: What an episode. Thanks everyone for listening. Don't forget to check out the show notes in the description where you can find out more about our guests and some links we've prepared for them waiting for you.
If you're new to the show, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast. We're in any of the major podcast, listening apps, and maybe you can leave us a comment. Also, we'd really like to hear from you because it helps us a great deal to move this show forward. If you want to know more about us, check out our own links in the show notes as well and consider maybe buying us a coffee or two so we can get fresh photography content out to you each month.
We'll leave you with a quote that is custom made for bird photography and it's from the photographer that I mentioned earlier, Joel Sartore. He's got a project. the photo arc, which is a quarter of a century long in documentary photography, looking at species, habitats, and how they're disappearing. His quote sums it up beautifully: “My work as a photographer is a mission to document endangered species and landscapes in order to show a world that is not That's worth saving.”
Think about that. Now, thank you for listening today. Pick up your camera, get out there and create something amazing. Thanks everybody!
Tom: Bye everyone. Thanks for listening.