Wildlife Cameraman Equipment

Wildlife cameraman equipment can be as small as a phone – perhaps even smaller. Wildlife photography has moved on immensely in the last few decades.  More people are taking wildlife photographs than ever before.  There are several reasons for this.  One very pleasing one is that more and more people are getting out into the countryside to learn about and appreciate nature.  Another is that it is so much easier to take good photographs these days.  Our mobile phones will never compete with the high end digital video and stills cameras, but there are some things for which they are perfect.  Case in point, this picture of a small frog.

Pose for the Samsung mobile

I was poking around the rockery in our garden when this little chap hopped out.  Measuring about an inch and a half in old money.  Normally they leap off into cover, but this one sat there for a while.  My phone was already to hand (I was listening to England regaining the Ashes in dramatic style via iPlayer radio and our WiFi, which reaches this part of the garden).  The Samsung 5’s ability to take good photos is right up there.  The lens is tiny, right at one corner of the unit.  This enabled me to place the lens practically on the gravel and look up, sort of, at this tiny amphibian.  If I were out in my wildlife cameraman guise with a set of standard equipment filming 4K I wouldn’t have been able to do this, or at least it would have taken an age while I flattened a large part of the garden.

Many people who have taken photos of wildlife or who love being wildlife cameramen for fun are shocked when they see how cumbersome most professional equipment is.  Nowadays it is likely that you will not be able to actually lift and move a tripod – camera combination to another position without dismantling it.  That is unworkable for many types of programming, but where it is possible to use these kinds of rigs the pictures can be startlingly beautiful.

Using your phone is liberating, but limiting.