Photography Lessons I Learned (The Hard Way) in the Galápagos

In January my wife and I spent a week with some good friends on an expedition cruise around the Galápagos Islands. The experience was far beyond anything I’d hoped for. The weather, the sea, the wildlife, even the land, was gorgeous. The photography though, did not go as I had planned. This is not your run of the mill vacation photography scenario, and I found I was ill-prepared for shooting these subjects in these conditions. In short, I learned a few lessons about photography, and myself as a photographer, the hard way.

Lesson 1: Nature photography is hard.

Maybe it goes without saying, but nature photography is really freaking hard. I realize I’m no Steve McCurry or David Yarrow, and I’m well aware that traveling as a tourist doesn’t always set you up for the best conditions for taking great photographs. But even so, you go into these things with some expectations. The animals in Galápagos are famously unafraid of people (they really are) and I sort of expected that snapping great frames would be like picking up SWAG at a Vegas tech conference. Boy was I wrong.

The animals may be close but they don’t sit still. Especially the birds! Have you ever tried photographing a bird in flight? It’s a recipe for sadness.

Some of the encounters with animals were limited to what we could see from a zodiac. A tiny boat that’s constantly pitching and rolling and splashing water in your face, and with twelve other people all vying for the same photo ops does not make for ideal shooting conditions.

And then there’s the light. It’s always too bright, or too dark, or behind the subject, or casting a weird shadow. You just can’t win.

Needless to say, nature photography requires being prepared for all kinds of challenging conditions and a “just roll with it” attitude. I had the attitude part, but the conditions were beyond what I anticipated.

I learned that:

• Nature photographers are made, not born. Practice, practice, practice. I reckon the zoo is good place to go since I don’t have a lot of wildlife running around my neighborhood. Except the damn birds.

• I should expect unfavorable conditions, and be prepared for worst-case shooting scenarios.

• I should do my homework, especially by reading about the places I’m planning to go and trying to understand what other photographers have done.

Lesson 2: Sometimes it IS about the equipment.

Any photographer will tell you that great photographs depend on vision, not gear, and that’s true. But there really are times when a 200mm lens is right (or at least better) and a 50mm lens is, well, not ideal. I don’t own any fast long lenses and I wasn’t prepared to buy expensive new glass just for this trip. So I took what I had and made the best of it. Don’t get me wrong, I managed to get some nice frames. But I now have a firsthand understanding of the difference another 100mm could have made.

I learned that:

• Focal length trumps aperture in daylight. Even a modest 70–200mm zoom would have really been nice, and in a lot of cases more useful than my ”fast” 18-50mm f/2.8.

Lesson 3: Sometimes less is more.

The iPhone is an amazing device. And that line about the best camera being the one that’s with you doesn’t mean that you have to settle for crappy pictures because you didn’t lug an SLR along. The iPhone camera is pretty damn good at applying all kinds of computational wizardry to capturing truly impressive color and detail over a wide depth of field and a very decent range of optical focal lengths. I mean what more could you ask for? I discovered on this trip that some of the photos I struggled to get with my Fuji (or failed to get), my wife and friends captured with ease on their iPhones! It’s the ultimate “be here now” camera, just point and shoot.

I learned that:

• I should accept the iPhone—and USE it—for the situations it’s well suited to.

• I should not try to make the X-T4 do what the iPhone can do really well with much less effort.

• I should instead play to the X-T4’s strengths. Paired with quality optics, especially some fast prime lenses that I already own, it can capture dramatic images with shallow depth of field or in low light conditions where the iPhone just doesn’t compare.

Lesson 4: There’s no reason not to shoot RAW.

This is something I’ve known for a long time, but for some reason simply resisted. I don’t know why. I don’t have a good excuse. And I realized once I got back from this trip the huge mistake I had made. I like to play around with Fujifilm’s film simulation modes, which allow you to apply a host of effects (clarity, sharpness, saturation, noise reduction, and more) to photos in-camera. The problem is that if you shoot only JPEGs, then you’re stuck with those settings forever. You can’t change or remove them after the fact. This is particularly stupid in light of the fact that SD cards make carrying tons of storage capacity really inexpensive. And it’s not like SD cards take up any space.

The big reason this one bothers me so much is that know that I’ve had a chance to compare my wildlife pics with those of the pros I realize one of the key features of really striking wildlife photos is the sharpness of the details. And some of the recipes I was using actually reduced sharpness and added grain. Nice for moody, nostalgic photos but not so nice for the animals.

It wasn’t a total loss though. I am really pleased with how the pictures I took at the lava fields turned out using the Tri-X simulation recipe.

I learned that:

• I need to always, always, always shoot RAW, and that film simulation effects can be applied in post.

Lesson 5: I’ll never have enough practice.

Maybe this is just another self-evident truth, but a lot of the frustration I faced on this trip could have been avoided (or at least minimized) had I been better prepared.

I learned that:

• I need to get out and shoot. A lot. I need to look for less than ideal conditions and practice shooting them. Poor light and uncooperative subjects aren’t fluke occurrences, they’re the norm. So I might as well get comfortable with them.

Lesson 6: Remember to bring the camera

This one’s just for the humor of it. I bought an Olympus TG-6 waterproof camera especially for this trip because I knew we’d be doing some snorkeling. Well sure enough on the very first snorkeling excursion of the trip I forgot all about it and left that darn thing in the stateroom. It turns out in retrospect that day’s conditions were some of the best of the whole trip. I didn’t make that mistake again and I managed to get some interesting underwater pics. But that was the only day I saw sharks!

I learned that:

• I need. to have. the camera. with me. No pictures will magically appear if the camera is left behind!

Conclusions

Nature photography is a pursuit for which I have newfound respect. Like every other form of photography, it takes practice. My trip was by no means a loss; I had a great time and actually did come away with a lot of nice photos. I hope to share more of them here at some point. In the meantime, I’ll stick with and try to do better next time.