The image that “Wildlife Photographer” brings to mind is a person dressed for the bush, draped with a camera with a large lens and a camera case, bulging pockets while managing piles of other equipment.
What do you Need
This article lists, with little waste of words, the equipment a Wildlife Photographer uses. It’s not really necessary to explain that “you need a good camera bag which will protect your gear from the elements and make it easy to carry around” but the article does give information that is not obvious and tries to categorize and rank the needs as obviously everything is not necessary.
The list is the equipment only (excluding food, drink, groceries, shelter, transport, etc) required to operate as a professional taking periodic extended trips.
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What Can’t Be Done Without
- Two Cameras: A high-quality mirrorless or DSLR camera with high ISO capability and a smartphone with great photography, computational, locational (GPS), and connectivity capability.
- Two Lenses: A high-quality constant aperture 200 to 600 mm zoom lens and a 900 mm fast prime for that one-off from miles away or the bumble bee busy in the flowers.
- A Tripod: A gimbal mounted on a solid tripod for those really sharp and clear long focal-length shots.
- Memory Cards: Fast high-capacity memory cards to manage storage and pre-processing.
- Batteries: Solar-charged battery packs and spare camera batteries along with chargers.
- A Camera Bag: Especially for the bits and pieces.
What Makes Life Easier
- Teleconverters: To get photographs, although of somewhat lower quality, when your telephoto is way too short and you can’t get closer.
- Shutter Release: The ability to trigger the camera when shooting from the tripod.
- Tablet: A large memory capacity tablet with keyboard and mouse connection and hard drives for backup and post-processing.
- Flash: A flash for fill-in lighting and night shots.
- Flashlights: High-power flashlights and adjustable LED floodlights.
- Durable Cases: For the safe storage of all equipment.
- Cleaning & Packaging Materials:
What’s Nice to Have
- Weatherproof clothing: A very nice to have becoming necessary when it’s really wet.
- Binoculars: To assist in identifying and locating the animals you are photographing.
- Camera mounting devices: Devices other than the tripod such as monopod, beanbag, and groundpod (disc stand for sand and snow)’
- Insect repellent: Could be a necessity in certain areas.
- A Stool: To be able to rest while waiting.
- A Light Meter: Just in case
- An 18% Gray Card: Just in case
- A Portable Printer: To allow proofing of prints.
What’s For Special Photos
- A Drone: To monitor animals and to get those great birds’ eye views.
- Three Animal Traps: For automatic photos on animal paths and to monitor animal movements during long stays.
- Portable Hides & Camouflage: To get close to very skittish animals.
- Field Guide: If you really need information about animals.
Of the 21 articles listed here only 6 would be required if the photographer were using a smartphone exclusively
What is the absolute minimum-
A top-level smartphone has many advantages over DSLRs and mirrorless cameras including
- Small, light, and pocketable
- Very large image data storage
- High burst rate
- In-camera postprocessing and transformation
- Direct connection to cloud computing
- Operation of online business
For general photography, they are able to produce results as good or better than DSLRs and mirrorless cameras but not in poor light performance, focus tracking and telephoto and zoom capability.
Some would argue that the minimum equipment required for wildlife photography would be a smartphone. But this would only be true if the photography of fast-moving and small animals was not part of the objective of the business.
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What kind of camera do I need for wildlife photography?
Unlike weddings where photographers are loath to not use a DSLR or mirrorless for fear of being considered unprofessional, the Wildlife Photographer has nobody to impress while photographing and lets his product do the talking.
So Professional Wildlife Photographers could use a smartphone for much of their work, retaining their existing camera for those cases where a smartphone is inadequate.
However, they will have to wait for developments in technology before they can switch to using a smartphone exclusively. They will need to stick to their DSLR or mirrorless in the meantime.
But if you are looking for a career in wildlife photography, you may start with a low-cost DSLR and minimum accessories and upgrade when you start earning some money