Better fishing pictures: Go close
Published Mar 16th 2006
Ways to improve your fishing photos. This time about going closer to the subject.
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Unless you already usually go very close to the subject, you can always get better results by going closer. If you think you are already close enough, take a step or two more to get even closer.
What you get from going close is:
- Attention-grabbing images, where the subject really fills the screen
- A natural cropping of the image with no need to crop later on and loose quality
- Focus on details, which are often more interesting than the whole
- The attention of the subject, images that communicate
The two pictures below clearly illustrate what you can obtain by moving in on your subject: going from the ordinary to the extraordinary.
Going closer
This series of pictures is just a small selection of about 30 I took in this situation. Notice how I started shooting from the distance and moved closer while taking even more pictures.
This series of pictures is just a small selection of about 30 I took in this situation. Notice how I started shooting from the distance and moved closer while taking even more pictures.
When taking pictures of people who fish, you need to be there with them. You want to be in the water, in the same boat, by their side. When something happens, like a hookup, you immediately start shooting, and subsequently move closer while constantly taking more pictures.
Once you get to a suitable distance you shoot full shots and also details: reel, hands, face, the fish. With a zoom you can vary your field-of-view, but if you use a camera or lens with a fixed focal length, you just move back and forth to vary the distance.
The best lens for close photography is a medium wide angle, what corresponds to a 28mm on a 35mm film camera. This lens will grab the whole scene, give a very good perspective and not disturb the perspective. Wider lenses can work well, but often gives some strange and hrad-to-handle perspective distortions. Longer lenses will not give the same sense of being there, but rather convey distance - for the simple reason that there is distance.
And just to straighten one thing out: by going close I don't mean switch to macro. Close is like in a few feet or a meter. Not down to inches.
This article was about going close in normal camera mode. I will cover macro photography in a coming article.
I also have a small photography site called 500th.net you can visit.
A series
These are all the articles in our series about better fly fishing photography. Read this series and you will learn a lot ebout getting better pictures while fishing. General outdoors pohotographers may also pick up a thing or two...Better fly-fishing pictures
- Reflections. Published March 3rd 2013
- Shadows. Published December 21st 2012
- Compose. Published November 30th 2012
- Fly pictures. Published March 25th 2012
- Close to the surface. Published July 29th 2011
- Waterscapes. Published January 9th 2011
- Pictures of nature. Published March 24th 2010
- Shoot the weather. Published March 15th 2010
- Gear pictures. Published June 16th 2009
- Bent Rods. Published May 2nd 2009
- Clear Water. Published February 15th 2009
- Casting pictures. Published January 29th 2007
- Underexpose. Published October 16th 2006
- Macro. Published August 30th 2006
- Jump!. Published June 21st 2006
- Use a tripod. Published June 1st 2006
- Glorious light. Published May 24th 2006
- Fishy pictures. Published May 4th 2006
- Bring it!. Published April 26th 2006
- Perfect Camera. Published April 9th 2006
- Use a fill flash. Published March 24th 2006
- Go low. Published March 20th 2006
- Go close. Published March 16th 2006
- Histograms not scheduled for publishing yet.
