Low Light Wildlife Photography

By Carol Leather

I remember the feeling perfectly.

My camera hung in my bag like a lead weight. I was walking through the woods on a damp May morning, the air thick and grey, dread tightening in my stomach.

This was meant to be the moment. The golden hour had come and gone and left flat, low light behind it. I wanted to prove to my husband that my new lens had been worth the money. So far I had not taken a single frame. I felt like a failure. Another wasted morning. Maybe low light wildlife photography was beyond me.

If you have ever set off early, full of hope, only for the weather to ignore the telegram, you know exactly how I felt.

Then the morning changed.

The Story Begins with a Shadow

My plan had been Fowlmere at first light, the early birds lit gold. Instead the light was flat and the reserve felt dead. I was deep among the trees, despondent.

"I'm hopeless. What a total waste of time."

I have a rule for mornings like this. When the plan fails, don't give up, slow down. Stay in one place rather than wander and hope. So I went to the hide and sat. The spring bubbled in the stream. The reeds swayed in a cool breeze. I felt alone, and if I am honest, a little bored.

Should I pack up and go home with my tail between my legs?

Then a movement at the corner of my eye. Above the water, a shadow. Probably nothing, but worth watching.

I never saw it arrive. One moment the water's edge was empty, the next a fallow deer stood there drinking. As my eyes adjusted I saw it was not alone.

My heart hammered. I did not dare move, but I wanted that scene.

I Hardly Dared Move

My camera was still in my lap, set to Aperture Priority at f/9 in case a kingfisher deigned to appear. There was no time to change anything.

I raised it to my eye as slowly as I could, hoping the shutter would not startle them. A glance told me the ISO was on Auto, so the camera would handle it. One less thing to think about.

In light this low the camera would push the ISO high, and at f/9 the shutter speed would be slow. A good job I could brace my elbows on the shelf inside the hide.

All of this ran through my head as I found focus, holding my breath as I pressed the shutter.

Click.

A branch cracked and the deer lifted their heads. I froze. Could they see me? Dark clothes, deep in the shadow of the hide, I hoped not.

They dipped to drink again. I let my breath go. Three more frames, and then they melted away as quietly as they had come.

A few moments later the hide door eased open and another photographer slipped in. We smiled. He nodded towards the spot where the deer had stood.

"From your expression, I'd say you saw them," he said. I nodded, too full to speak.

He set his camera and its monstrous lens on the shelf and told me he had spotted them on his way in. He had stopped and watched. They had been too close to photograph.

Finding Joy in the Noise When Editing

Back at my computer, I zoomed in.

Were they noisy?

Yes. At ISO 12800 the grain is plain to see. They are not technically perfect. But they are honest. They feel the way the moment felt, looking into a deer's eyes and not knowing whether it was looking back. Quiet. Close.

I don't mind the grain. It belongs to that murky morning.

What mattered was the sheer joy of seeing the deer, and proving to myself that I was not a failure at low light wildlife photography after all.

I will admit to a little editing afterwards. Nearly every wildlife photo needs some. But I was not trying to scrub the noise away.

I wanted anyone looking at these pictures to have to look closely too, the way I had, to find what was hiding in the grain.

In the excitement I had not even noticed I'd caught a perfect reflection in the water.

What I'd do differently next time

The photos worked. I still learned from them.

I was at f/9 because I was half expecting a kingfisher out on the water, and for a deer standing still that was more depth of field than I needed. It cost me. A wider aperture, around f/5.6, would have let in more light, held the ISO lower, and left less grain to live with. In flat light now I open up first and tighten down only if I actually need the depth.

Auto ISO rescued the moment, and I would trust it again. What I would add is a ceiling. Set a maximum ISO, and a minimum shutter speed the camera has to keep, and it stops climbing all the way to 12800 unless there is genuinely no other choice.

Bracing my elbows on the shelf kept that slow shutter sharp enough. A beanbag would have done it better. The beanbag trick is in my notebook if you want it.

None of it would have made the morning better. Only the files cleaner. And some mornings, the file is not the point.

Low light is a hard place to begin. If you are still finding your feet, start with my wildlife photography tips for beginners: the settings, light and fieldcraft that come before a morning like this.

The same high-ISO thinking applies to photographing wildlife in the rain, where the light drops just as fast.

More pages from my notebook