Rainforest Photography at night
- Nikolaas Aelbrecht
- 13 jan 2019
- 5 minuten om te lezen
Bijgewerkt op: 15 jan 2019
Welcome to my new blog post! Here I will give you an in-depth insight on how I take pictures of small animals during the dark nights of the rainforest. In 2018 I went to the Amazon rainforest and to the Gunung Leuser Rainforest in Indonesia. At both places I ventured out at night armed with a flashlight and a camera in search for animals that come out at night.
The animals you might encounter
Before talking about the techniques of taking the pictures I would like to talk a bit more about what you can find at night. Although in most rainforests there are big predators like jaguars or tigers that are active at night, chances of encountering those are really slim. Instead you can better focus on finding small animals like reptiles, amphibians, spiders and insects. It is a whole different type of wildlife than what you encounter during the day. That are mainly monkeys and birds often high up in the canopy and very hard to photograph. This brings me to the main reason I really like to photograph night animals in the rainforest. You can get really close, they don’t move a lot and if they move it is very slowly. "Perfect! That is easy to photograph, I hear you thinking." But there is a big challenge. It is pitch dark at night in a rainforest, so you will have to come with your own light. The gear I bring is a flashlight, a camera flash and a tripod. Having the right equipment and the courage to explore this vast and dark forest the next step is 'How do I find those little creatures!?'
Now you are ready to go and hike in the rainforest at night it is important to also understand the danger. Always make sure that you go with a guide or other hikers. Also don't go to far so you can always find your way back. Keeping an eye on the light of your camp / accomodation is a good way to keep your orientation.
A good strategy is needed to find them
Finding small animals during the night needs a special strategy. Especially as they are often well camouflaged like this lizard. I learned this strategy from my guides in the Amazon who lived all their life in the rainforest. The key is to go slow! Hold your flashlight at eye-level and search in different levels:
- level 0: The ground
Here you can find toads, lizards or spiders. they are mainly brown just like the ground so hard to find.
- level 1: small plants
On the leafs or branches of small plants you can often find frogs, spiders, insects, lizards, ...
- level 3: the canopy
High up in the trees it is hard to find animals but if you are lucky you might find a bird sleeping or some night monkeys.
So the best way to find animals is to take a few steps, light up the ground with your flashlight, than the small plants and next the canopy. Take a few more steps and repeat it. You will not do great distances but it is very important to take it slow as most animals are easily overlooked.
Photographing the animals
Whoohoo after doupting a 100 times about going back as this is way out of your comfort zone you found your first animal!!! Very good, but now the next challenge, taking pictures. The most important thing is to try to not scare the animal so you can take the time to try different things.
The use of light
Using a flashlight and your camera flash will give good light already. Often I use the flashlight to give some light from under the animal and to light up the environment a bit. If you have several flashlights and put your camera on a tripod with a timer mode (what I advice you to do anyway) you can light up more of that environment. As you are in a natural setting, you travelled far to get there and took the effort to go out at night it would be a pitty if you don't include this environment and make your pictures look like they are taken in a studio. In my pictures you can always see some leafs or the mossy underground but when you have more flashlights you can include even way more of the environment.
By using a flashlight and a flash you have two sources of light that create harsh light. The problem can be that the scene doesn't look natural anymore. A way to avoid this is by lighting up the animal from under the leaf it is sitting on (like in picture below). It makes the light look more natural.
Focus
Focusing is another challenge when photographing at night. Your autofocus will go crazy when you try to focus on your subject in the dark. But you have two options.
You try to autofocus while pointing with your flashlight to the animal. If this brings enough light in order for your autofocus to work this is the best way. Once your focus is good you switch to manual focus in order to keep that focus.
You try to find the right focus with manual focus also while lighting up the animal. This is harder but a good way if your autofocus doesn't work in the low light.
However you will always have to take your time for this and do it all over again if the animal moves or you want to change composition. So make sure you don't scare the animal away as it is bad for the animal and you will lose a lot of time.
In this picture I focused on the first frog and with a larger depth of field and good light you can still see the other one very good.
Composition
Many animals you will encounter are very special and interesting to show on their own but by using a good composition you can create much more interesting pictures.
In this picture for example I decided to not only show the frog but also the branch and the beautiful leafs at top. This makes the image more interesting and beautiful. As it is dark it is often more difficult to make a good composition and you are so focused on light and focus that it is easy to forget. But it is crucial in order to make a good picture and to include the environment in an interesting way.
Thank you all for reading and good luck with using the tips! You can also try it at a stream near your home, you might find some frogs there as well! If you have any questions you can contact me.
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