Photography

what do you mean? What's so strange about say 1/1000s f/4 in daylight?

There's no issue what so ever.

Modern cameras can shoot at much higher ISOs without objectionable grain than they ever have before. Couple that with long telephotos that are faster (sure they're not f/1.8 or f/2 that you see in shorter lenses) lenses and you're filling the frame at a distance with a usable ISO and shutter speed.

Daylight generally provides enough light for the job.

Additionally, depending upon the animal you're taking pictures of, shutter speed likely doesn't need to be above 1000/1500. Most animals are not moving around at full speed all the time.

For birds in flight even, I shoot around 1/1250 or so. Exceptions would be hummingbirds if I want to stop wing movement, that's at least 1/2500 or a bit higher.

And equipment can make a big difference. For serious professional shooters, they may have a fixed aperture of say f/4 or f/5.6, which is excellent. A budget lens can be several stops more which would cause challenges, particularly at dusk/daybreak.

Looking for the right light. Fast lenses. High ISO. Lots of waiting and taking a lot of shots that don't turn out.

The wildlife photographers I know will use whatever iso is required to get the photo. Better to have some noise in the photo then no photo. You can also clean the noise up in post.

Just let that ISO climb and clean it later. Topaz denoise, DxO, LR C Denoise all work wonders for making an ISO 10000 shot look decent.

Since lens with high focal distance are generally not that fast

Cheap lenses aren't that fast. Here's a 400mm 2.8 lens for $12,000 And if that's not enough here's a 200-500mm 2.8 for over $20,000

Even if you add a 2X extender that's still 5.6 at 800 or 1,000mm. That's not that bad when you're shooting in good daylight conditions.

And of course that's assuming you're shooting from a long distance. This is just one option to shoot wildlife. Another is to turn into a hunter. Camo, scents, lures, bait, blinds, etc. Combined with enough time and patience these people will get wildlife pretty close to them so they can use wider lenses.

Crank that ISO baby. 12800 is acceptable for me on a full frame body. You can always clean it up in post.

Obviously, limit your shutter speed if possible.

With DxO DeepPrime, noise is getting close to being irrelevant.

how do they get light without addind too much gain an grain ?

With the giant ball of plasma in the sky you can shoot at 1/3200ths, f/5.6, ISO 400 - or 1/800ths and ISO 100.

I don't see what the problem with either of those would be?

With enough money you can get lenses that are long and fast. Otherwise, you seek out good light; one of the biggest tips for beginner wildlife photographers is to go out at the right time of day. Direct sunlight an hour or so after dawn is more than sufficient to freeze motion with minimal noise, even at a reduced aperture on an APS-C camera body (400mm, f8, 1/2000s, ISO400).

Flashes used to be common - early digital/film era wildlife photography books I've read suggest that a flash is a necessary tool - but seem to be dwindling. Use of denoising software is also common.

F4 is pretty fast and there are fast telephoto lenses like the 600mm f4. They cost an arm and leg but professional photographers rent them, or their work pays for them.

During the day there is a lot of light. At f4 during the day at ISO 400 shooting at 1/200th of a second is possible.

Noise also seems to be a bogey man with people complaining about noise even at ISO 100 at times which I think is confusion over what ISO related noise is.

Once you take a 20mp+ and either resize for web or print it most noise is not visible to anyone but pixel peeping photographers even at IS 3200 or higher as long as the image was properly exposed.

Lastly with modern AI denoising tools even very high ISO images can look very clean.

Let me know if you want some real world examples of ISO 3200+ images that I think look very clean when resized for web at sizes larger than IG allows.

Rent your own elephant and bring it back to the studio where the big big Lights are

/s

Everyone here is going on about fast lenses but, while I’m no professional, I literally use a kit lens. At 250mm its biggest is 5.6. When I’m shooting birds or animals I just go auto iso on manual setting and don’t go above 1600 iso on my canon rebel t7.

I’m not getting anything that’s far away and needs a lot of crop, but outside of that it’s not really an issue.

Enjoy the hunt, your skills will get better over time. Just put your camera into manual with auto ISO and forget about it. Clean up in post.

It's not like f/2.8 and f/4 telephoto lenses don't exist; they're just crazy expensive. Though even that said, they're like used car expensive - not totally out of reach for someone who's really into wildlife photography.

Though you also don't even need those per se. Telephoto lenses from f/5.6 to f/6.3 are relatively affordable-ish, and daylight offers more than enough light to use a fast shutter even at those relatively smaller apertures. Modern cameras handle high ISO's with very little noise if you do need to increase that a bit, which makes them a pretty good option for us mere mortals who don't want to drop $10k+ on a lens.

IT's a combination of:

• You're probably not looking at their photos as you are your own
• Really expensive cameras with excellent high ISO performance
• Really expensive lenses like the 200-500 f/2.8

You don’t need what you think you need. I have a fast telephoto, but I hang around at f/6.3-f/9 and almost never shoot wide open if I don’t have to. Bright, sunny days mean I can go with a 1.4x attached and shoot at ISO 100. Cameras these days are way better at higher ISO in regards to noise than they were in the past. High ISO can easily be your friend here. Crank it up. You might be surprised.

Shoot in bright places :)

Most havent said it but it also depends on the subject. Some scenes are so still that you can even get away with 1s exposures. Ive shot sharp owls in dark when I cant even see them but since they are quite still, I can still use longer exposures.

I shoot sports photography at 500mm, f/8, generally shutter speed of 1/1000, and I set the iso to auto but if it's day time it never goes too high.

But in more challenging lighting you can change the shutter speed and aperture down obviously. But like if it's dark and I reduce the shutter speed to 1/200 or something I might get some bad pictures with motion blur but I'll still get some okay ones some of the time and it's either that or just stop taking photos.

fast pro lenses. Aside from large apertures the coatings and quality of glass add a hard to define extra vibrance to the shots.. sharpness, contrast etc

full frame sensors with good low light and noise performance

There are distinct advantages to the pro gear. Whether it justifies the cost depending on your use, is a different story. imo the majority of low-mid range gear does an excellent job for most applications.

If your subject fills most of the frame, iso 10000+ is not really an issue with good post processing. If you pixel peep, you will find problems with most photos that aren't really problems.

Pro wildlife photographers will spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a faster lens.

When I shoot in darker conditions, shooting RAW, high ISO, and proper shutter really, my better pics definitely are primo lighting and perfect conditions, but finding the right spot and getting a tripod set up is helpful as well

Flash. No kidding. Just a smidge.

Ai literally replaces the noise dots into pixel colour. Gone are the days of noisy photos

With decent stabilization, which is a given for any usable wildlife lanes, you can use a shutter speed that's about half of the one over focal length rule. So for example instead of 1/600th for a 600 mm lens, you can use 1/300th if it's really dim.

A decent rule of thumb is that in broad daylight at f/8, you can shoot 1/100th at ISO 100. So you're only about two stops away from optimal in daylight. And of course, those who can afford the f/4 version of a lens can regain those stops.

I actually kind of liked the somewhat weird experiment Canon recently did, a fixed 800 mm Prime at f/11. I had to return it, not because of the noise but because the autofocus was flaky and it was somewhat inconvenient to not be able to Zoom out.

Practice and money.

Better body with full frame has less noise, but costs

Better lenses with lower Fstops, but costs

Learning the lighting situations.

Editing in post.

You are constantly trying to use the lowest possible shutter speed. With something like a perched bird, I'll go down to 1/25. For flying birds, you don't have to get every frame sharp (especially if you have a fast camera like an a1 at 30 fps), so while I used to shoot at 1/3200 I'll now shoot at 1/1600 for cleaner images.

Of course, faster lenses help, and most pros are using a 600mm f4.

But yeah, this remains the biggest technical challenge in wildlife photography.

They fill their memory cards with thousands of pics and cull down to the best ~10%

People don't see the other 900 throwaways, they just see the good ones. So they think wildlife photographers go out there and click a few perfect pics and then go home.

Exotic lenses are not slow.