Digital Cameras and Nature Photography

The pictures appearing on these pages since June 1999 were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera. Along the way, I’ve had some correspondence with people on this model and on digital cameras, in general. I thought it would be a good idea to gather up some of those thoughts into a web page, as I suspect there are others out there considering the world of digital nature photography. Again, these comments are geared mainly toward the Nikon 950, but some are applicable to any model.

Why digital instead of film? Digital images can immediately be downloaded to your computer, an advantage if you maintain a frequently updated web site. They can also be e-mailed to people, if you need something identified or presented for discussion. It’s also the ticket if you don’t want to deal with buying film or having it developed. There’s no wasted film. You can check your results in the field and simply delete images that didn’t come out right, thereby reusing space on your camera’s memory card. Digital is also the ticket if you want to see pictures on your computer’s monitor instead of having boxes full of slides lying around, requiring a projector for viewing. On the down side, there’s no hard backup of your pictures. You’ll want a good electronic backup plan, be that tape, zip drive, or whatever. If you take pictures in order to do presentations, digital is not your best option. Oh it is doable, but LCD projectors are expensive.

The LCD viewfinder: An LCD viewfinder is a tremendously useful part of many digital cameras. It can be used for framing, reviewing images, working with the camera’s menus, and is essential for the use of digital zoom. For the nature photographer, it makes it possible to extend the arms toward the subject or in unusual angles (such as well above the head), offering two benefits. 1) You can take pictures that would be physically impossible when requiring viewing through an optical viewfinder. 2) You can approach a sensitive subject with less body movement. The down side is that it’s one of the biggest drains on battery life. You may read reviews or opinions that recommend avoiding the LCD display as much as possible. However, I don’t think this is possible for butterfly or dragonfly photography. Nikon’s manual recommends using the LCD for macro work, because the optical viewfinder doesn’t frame accurately in this mode. My experience with the Nikon 950 indicates that the optical viewfinder is not accurate either at the shortest distances you would shoot under the normal setting, which is about a foot. So bring extra batteries and get those pictures right.

On the macro: All the images in these pages were shot in macro mode. On average, they’re at a distance of 4 inches. Keep that in mind if you’re buying a camera for this kind of photography. Some models may allow close focus out of the box, while some may require the purchase of a separate macro lens. You can check each manufacturer’s web site for specs on its models. The Nikon Coolpix 950 has drawn rave reviews for its macro ability. This seems to be well earned. When you put the camera into a recording mode and set it for macro, the autofocus will go to work on objects 4 inches away. If you pan out a little toward wide angle, the focus can work at an amazing 0.8 inches. (Manual focus is limited to 4 inches). My experience tells me that 4 inches is a good range for species that measure up to an inch and a half in length, such as skippers and hairstreaks. For species at the upper end of this range or slightly larger, you can hold the camera back a little more (of course, the amount of background you want enters into the equation). Once you start dealing with subjects near 2 inches in size, or larger, the normal setting may suffice. The advantages are that you are less likely to disturb your subject and that normal focusing is slightly faster than macro. Digital zoom can be employed on subjects further away, but resolution will suffer.

Memory considerations: What sets apart digital cameras from film cameras is the storage of images in electronic form rather than film. The two predominant forms of storage are CompactFlash (Nikon, Kodak and SmartMedia (Olympus, Fuji) memory cards. They’re about similarly priced, but Smartmedia is only available up to 32 MB while CompactFlash can be found up to 224 MB. Sony has two different approaches, the recently introduced Memory Stick and the storage medium that’s probably made its Mavica line the leading seller -- floppy disks. Like "VHS tapes that play in your VCR", it’s a good hook for casual or less demanding consumers. I think it’s a severe limitation for nature photography. A floppy holds 1.44 MB. I spent a week in Florida recently and came back with 200 MB of pictures. Even locally last summer, I filled up a 48 MB memory card on some weekends. Yes, you could carry a lot of floppies, but that’s inconvenient. Plus, don’t want to have to change disks while you’re on a subject that can fly away. The size and resolution you use will affect how often you have to. At the settings I use for birds, I’d have to change disks after 3 shots. Even with high capacity compact flash cards, I’ll occasionally have to change at the wrong time. Then throw in battery changes. After you’ve worked hard to creep up on something, you don’t want to blow it with unnecessary movements.

Body Design: An advantage of the Nikon 950 – which I realized after I already had it – is the swivel tilt design. The lens and the LCD viewfinder are in separate compartments, offering interesting flexibility that is not available with other digital cameras or with a film camera where you have only an optical viewfinder. I can photograph a moth that’s sitting on a tree trunk 8 feet up by extending my arms up and tilting the LCD downward to see what I’m shooting. I can hold the camera on the ground and tilt the LCD upward to get lateral shots of a subject on the ground.

Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom: Camera ads often pronounce both optical and digital zoom capabilities, followed by the total magnification. That’s nice. If you take an image from this web site, open it in a photo editor and resize it to a larger size, you’ll get an idea of what digital zoom does within the camera. It’s just software enlarged, with no additional detail. As a result, the image looks pixelated (jagged edges, etc.). You won’t want this unless you absolutely need the largest magnification possible in order to identify a subject. Forget the digital zoom.