Shooting Rabbits for fun...

...with a camera! You have to add "with a camera" to that title!

I became aware of an active rabbit warren not far from where I am based and having driven past it several times, yesterday I decided to go take a closer look. As rabbits are pretty small things that, believe it or not, can move quiet quickly when they want to, I took my Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 lens. I wanted to see if I could get some usable shots handheld at f2.8 with a shallow depth of field. It was really an exercise for me to get to grips with the lens as I haven't really used it substantially on wildlife shoots yet - I've been defaulting to my 70-200mm f2.8 as it is lighter in weight.

So here's what I got...

It was a lot of funny watching these fellas hop about. The area where the warren was located was in a field in a fairly urban environment. You cannot see in the images, because of the shallow depth of field, but the trees on the horizon hide a major dual carriageway! Luckily access to the field was fairly easy, and there was even a dry ditch just before a wooden fence. I was able to lie in this and place the lens on the fence for stability and take these shots. 

This was just for fun really and what I learnt is that with this lens, it really should be used on a tripod or monopod. Its just too heavy to practically use in the field and eliminate camera shake and potential blur. Shooting at f2.8 I was really impressed with the shallow depth of field. I wasn't using the depth of field in anyway for story telling in these images. It was simply a test to say what the focal plane looked like. Getting a low angle really helped. These rabbits were playing quiet a lot and would go into the warren and then pop their heads back out again. This is the case in the first image where the rabbit is sitting in the warren entrance. 

If you are just starting out with wildlife photography, always look for opportunities to shoot in the field, no matter what the wildlife is. You will hone your skills and learn something from it. 

Until next time