Re: [Leica] suitability of M for wildlife photography

[Doug Herr <telyt@earthlink.net>]

on 12/19/01 3:35 PM, Tom Finnegan at TomF@piengr.com wrote:

> some poor confused soul suggested:
> 
> ok, this is going to hurt....
> 
> EOS-3 + > 400 mm
> *****************************
> 
> Wasn't it Robert Capa that said something along the lines of, 'if the
> picture isn't any good, you are not close enough'. So much of wildlife
> photography is static stale pictures of animals taken from a long ways away
> with some monster lens. Can you imagine doing street photography with a 400
> mm lens? Certainly not! So why wildlife photography? All sense of intimacy
> and involvement is lost.
> 
 
I've used lenses as short as 24mm for wildlife photos, though I must say the
most likely use for a lens shorter than 200mm or so is when the critter is
attacking me.  I avoid these situations.
 
When not under attack, my goal is to use the shortest possible lens,
typically as short as 250mm.  An easy way to do this is to hang around in
one place for a few hours... eventually I become part of the scenery and I
can move around and photograph at will.
 
> 
> hmmmmm......., now that I think about it, street photography with the
> 560/6.8 telyt and shoulder stock could be interesting. I might just have to
> try that one out.
>

Not quite street photography but DDD at the '68 democratic convention comes
to mind....  I've also used the 400 for candid photos of the kids in my
daughter's class after they're on to my "21mm shot from the hip" technique.
 
Doug Herr
Birdman of Sacramento
www.wildlightphoto.com


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