The other day I was out testing an old camera I haven't used for awhile and came across this groundhog. It's not a great picture but it provides a very useful lesson.At the time I had a 35mm lens on my camera. In plain English, this means I had about the worse lens you can imagine for photographing wildlife. A 35mm lens won't bring your quarry any closer, in fact optically it will push your subject farther away! So how did I get this picture?
The groundhog was a good forty feet away when I first spotted him, merrily chomping grass. If I had just started walking toward him he would have taken off. What I did instead was stand there, waiting. Every minute or so I took a couple of slow steps forward, usually when the groundhog had his head down. By approaching this way and never making any sudden movements, I didn't alarm him. He was relaxed enough that he ate his way in my general direction even as I continued to edge my way toward him. It took maybe ten minutes all told but eventually I got close enough to take this picture. I then blew it by getting down to get an eye-level shot. The groundhog didn't like that and promptly ran away for good.
But the moral still stands that even if you don't have the best equipment for the job you can accomplish a lot with a little know-how and patience. Be sneaky. And if you're approaching birds don't just be slow and careful. Be indirect. Approach like this, with X being your bird:
For whatever reason this kind of route doesn't seem to set off a bird's internal alarm as much as walking straight. Try it. You'll (sometimes) be amazed how close you can get.UPDATE: As several astute readers have quickly pointed out, the above zig-zag pattern can also be effective when you are being chased by wildlife.
