How to Film Wildlife with a DSLR Camera
So as I gear up for my 3rd trip to South Africa in less than 12 months, I decided to write a blog on how I filmed my two films from Sabi Sands last year: "How to Film Wildlife with a DSLR Camera."
If you are a serious wildlife photographer with a fairly recent Canon or Nikon DSLR, you may or may not be aware of the fact that your body has a video function. In fact many Directors and Producers adopted these video enabled DSLRs for feature work because they offered a huge degree of creative possibilities that standard video cameras do not. Most notably a more cinematic like image because of the ability to use an interchangeable lens system and play with the depth of field of you subject. But is that really needed and practical for wildlife photography?
The reality is, filming video with a DSLR is not as simple as just hitting the record button. There are some design features of the DSLR which mean that to make it work as a video tool, you have to navigate some compromises. If you have the knowledge then you can get some stunning images. The other advantage for the travelling photographer is that you can take stills and video with one body. However it isn't that easy to switch back and forth between both modes when you are trying to capture the action in a safari jeep. Here's my breakdown of how to make it work...
Stabilisation
Ok so you have your body and your lens, and maybe as a stills shooter with a long lens you feel comfortable shooting hand held despite the extra weight. The number one thing you need to do when shooting video with a DSLR is get some stabilisation. Using a tripod shooting from a jeep on Safari isn't really practical unless you are lucky to have plenty of space. A good monopod with a fluid video head is the next best thing. This will allow you to position height, pan, tilt and work your compositions out easily. With a long heavy lens, your arms will take a rest too! If you don't have a monopod, look for the more cost effective bean bag option to put over the side of the jeep door. Last resort - look for a sturdy mounting bracket you can mount to the jeep, Mafrotto do a series of clamps which are flexible in all sorts of situations and do the job.
Important Tip: If your lens has image stabilisation (IS), turn it off if you mount it on a tripod or monopod, otherwise it will interfere with the image.
Me in the back of a jeep, DSLR on monopod with a shotgun microphone filming a cheetah.
Focus
You can use your camera's auto focus features for wildlife, but with more faster moving subjects you are going to have to become skilled in manual focusing. This is not easy due to the LCD viewfinder being quiet small and at the back of the camera, even more challenging in bright sun light. A viewfinder such as the Zacuto viewfinders work really well for manual focusing. An additional advantage is that when you are using it, it gives another point of contact to your body and so helps stabilise the image. If your DSLR has a zoom feature, use this to zoom in and get pin sharp focus on your subject before hitting record.
A viewfinder attached to the LCD screen of your DSLR body will help you manually focus more precisely.
Camera Mode Setup
Simple: Set to Manual!
Use the menu to set the video mode to 25 frames per second (25 fps) or 24 frames per second (24 fps) depending on where you live!
In movie record size you want 1920x1080 Full HD. This will give you the best image quality.
Use good fast CF or SD cards for shooting video. For CF you want 300x or more and for SD you want Class 10 or above.
Shutter Speed
Set to 1/50 or 1/60 (if in the US) - do not deviate from this!
White Balance
Never use Auto White Balance! Chose the white balance mode to suit the conditions: daylight or cloudy if you are outdoors.
Shoot Landscape
Tip for photographers really - only shoot video horizontally, never vertically!
Exposure
As you have set and fixed your shutter speed to 1/50 of a second for video, your exposure will be regulated by two parameters: Aperture and ISO. Let's break this part down into two categories:
- Low light shooting - for low light shooting you will most likely need to open your lens iris up as much as possible without negatively effecting the focal plane and having too much shallow depth of field. This should be balanced with increasing the cameras sensitivity with ISO. However do not push the ISO above 1600. The higher the ISO the more you start to introduce noise in to the image. If in doubt under expose your image. It is easier to correct in Post than noise.
- Bright daylight - when you have great light the issue you will face is over exposure. Even stopping to a narrow aperture of >f16 with a minimum ISO setting will likely give you an over exposed image. This is where you will need a key accessory: a variable ND filter. This filter allows you, by turning it, to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor. This allows you to chose your aperture setting (and your depth of field) without over exposing. A Vari-ND filter is an essential piece of kit for shooting video on a DSLR.
Important Tip: If you plan on switching between stills and video - remember to remove the variable ND filter. You don't want the filter on and interfering with your wildlife shooting preferences.
A vari-ND filter is like a pair of sunglasses for your lens with a 2-10 stop range this accessory is essential for controlling your exposure in video mode.
Lenses and Focal Length
Choose the right lens for your composition. When shooting video think about the bigger picture. As a wildlife photographer, getting close up to your subject with the zoom is all well and good, but show your viewer the bigger picture. If you are zoomed in close to your subject then think about what is going on out of shot. You might have ambient sounds that don't correspond to the image you have zoomed in on. Build context to your clips and think about the wider angles.
A good all round lens for video would be a 24-70mm or a 24-105mm. For wider compositions a 11-16mm or 16-35mm are also good options. If you still want to get that close up, by all means go to your 70-200mm or longer lens. But remember each time you want to use a different focal length you have to change lenses on your camera. This isn't ideal if you need to switch lenses quick. So try and think ahead about your shots when you are at your sightings.
Important Tip: Never zoom whilst recording - a) it is distracting b) you will loose focus and c) just don't do it!
Audio
As a stills photographer you probably have not given much thought to audio, you have never had too! But for video good quality audio is really important. The bad news is that the built in DSLR camera microphones are poor quality. Most DSLRs now have a microphone input jack. So it is worth investing in some form of shotgun microphone to mount on the cameras hot shoe. This will record good quality sound directly onto your memory cards. If you need even better quality audio for an interview or piece to camera the shotgun microphone may not be enough. An inexpensive way around this is using an audio recording app for your phone. Tascam do a free audio recording app for the iPhone and in combination with your headphones/microphone you have an inexpensive lavalier microphone set up!
An on camera shotgun video microphone, like this one from Rode, will vastly improve the audio quality of your video clips.
Have Fun!
Shooting video on a DSLR is challenging but if you follow the advice above it can be a lot of fun and rewarding. If you are a serious stills shooter and want to capture some behind the scenes video then think twice about using your DSLR. Switching back and forth between modes at speed isn't easy, especially changing lenses. You might be better off having a small and capable dedicated camcorder that you or a companion can carry with you to catch those memories more easily.