I love Otters and when I saw the cover of this book I immediately was interested. For less than 15 Euros, there was not much too loose and I always get some inspiration out of wildlife and nature photography books.
After finishing the book, I was not disappointed. It really is a good book. It is aimed (in my opinion) mostly at beginning and intermediate nature photographers who are serious about learning about their craft.

In every nature photography book I look at the pictures first to see how good the photographer is. Here I can say that Steve and Ann Toon are very skilled photographers and the pictures alone are an inspiration.
Having been in South Africa this year for the first time, I was happy to see so many pictures from that place. In fact most pictures in the book are either from South Africa or the UK. But don’t let that bother you, all the things you can learn from the book can also be applied to all the other great places like Yellowstone or a Tiger reserve in India.

The book covers equipment, how to use a camera and other technical gear, composition, wildlife photography in the field and a little about the digital darkroom. At the end of the book, the authors even have some tips on how to become a professional photographer.
Of course the authors can’t go into every detail in a 175 page book, particularly not when it comes to the digital darkroom but it gives the reader an idea on what the authors do at the computer.

The main subjects in the book are mammals, often large ones like Lions or Elephants, followed by birds and a few insects. Macro photography (e.g. of insects) is only covered a little and you will definitely need more literature about this fascinating area of nature photography.

The writing in the book is easy to follow and always interesting when the authors write about their personal experience.

If you are an advanced wildlife photographer, you probably won’t get much out of the text but the pictures can still be a fantastic inspiration.
If you are a beginning or intermediate wildlife photographer, then I highly recommend this book!

Buy from amazon

Doug Brown and Arash Hazeghi are two of the most skilled bird photographers with a special focus on birds in flight.
They both recently published reviews of the new Canon EF 4/600L IS II which looks like the best lens for bird photography Canon has ever made. Incredibly sharp and with a weight of only ca. 3.9kg – which is about 27% lighter than the old version about about the weight of my Canon EF 4/500L IS (the new EF 4/500L IS II is about 3.2 kg).

Too see there reviews click on the following two links:

Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II field review by Arash Hazeghi

The New Canon 600mm f/4 II Has Arrived!!! by Doug Brown

Check out this great new article about how to improve your wildlife photography written by Morkel Erasmus:

10 Tips for Improving Your Wildlife Photography.

Also check out Morkel’s website:
morkelerasmus.com.

Arthur Morris, one of the best bird photographers in the world is also famous for many books and e-books he has published including user guides for Canon DSLRs.
Now two new guides covering the EOS 7D and the EOS 1D Mark IV will be available very soon. I already ordered my EOS 7D guide and can’t wait to read it.
This won’t be just some copied information from the manual (as some other worthless books do) but written by someone who really uses the camera in the field and also actually know how to get the best results from it.
The EOS 7D is BY FAR the best middle range DSLR for bird and nature photographers Canon has ever built so far and the 1D Mark IV is probably the best pro model so far (I have not yet used the 1D Mark IV as I prefer spending the money on a good trip or two).

For more information about the new e-books by Arthur Morris, click here:
Canon EOS-7D User’s Guide

I will publish a review about the EOS 7D guide here once I’ve finished reading it.

I just finished reading the The Ultimate Guide to Digital Nature Photography published by the Mountain Trail Photo Team. I really like this book. It may not be “ultimate” but no book can be. For example, you could write a whole book only on bird or butterfly photography and fill more pages than this book has (192). So, not everything is covered in great detail (for example photographing birds in flight or how to best use a hide to photograph shy animals).
But there is a lot to like in this book. First of all are the absolutely stunning pictures from various photographers. I’ve read many nature photography book but this one belongs to the top 5 when it’s comes to the quality of the images presented. The printing quality is stunning and it is just a joy watching all those amazing photographs and become inspired by them. The pictures alone are worth the price of the book.
The text is mostly written for beginning and intermediate nature photographers. It covers equipment, exposure or how to use light. The chapter on composition is one of the best treatments of this subject I’ve read. It may not be as detailed as in some other books but has many clear explanations illustrated with awesome images and it also covers stuff not found in many other books like using triangles, S- and C-cuvers or Zig-Zags.
One chapter covers special effects like using HDR, multiple exposures, night exposures are using flash. Here more details, especially for using flash would have been great but there is still a lot of useful information to be found. The HDR information is also only basic but given that this is such a big subject, the reader will probably have to buy a separate book on HDR anyway.
In the chapter “Making magical images” the reader can find many tips on how to improve his photography organised by various subjects like landscape, macro or wildlife.
The chapter on digital workflow covers the basics of how to work with your images in the digital darkroom. Given that topics like Lightroom or Photoshop are very complex, again, here only the basics are presented and you will need more detailed books covering those topics.
At the end there is one page with some thoughts on turning pro, a photographic calendar covering interesting locations in North America and some small tutorials on specific topics like photographing autumn color, waterfalls or birds in flight (as I wrote above, the coverage here is basic for some topics. 5 small paragraphs on how to photograph birds in flight are a good start but won’t be enough to make you an expert – but becoming an expert in birds in flight photography can only be done with lots of practice, anyway.

Overall I liked the book a lot. The text is great for beginning and intermediate nature photographers and the pictures are so good that even advanced and professional nature photographers can learn something from them or become inspired by them.

Highly recommended!

Buy the book from amazon:

I recently had the change to read Alan Murphy’s “Guide to Songbird Set-up Photography”, an E-book written by Alan Murphy, one of the best bird photographers in the world and published by Arthur Morris’ Birds as Art Store.
Alan Murphy has become famous for all his amazing pictures of song birds and other species which he attracts to prepared perches.
This book, which is only available on CD, covers in detail how Alan does create his fantastic images. The only focus of the book is on how to create the perfect set-ups for attracting and photographing birds. It is not a beginners guide to bird photography. You should know how to handle a DSLR and a telephoto lens.

The title is not entirely correct as the book does not only cover song birds but also some other groups like hummingbirds, woodpeckers, ducks or grouse.

A few topics covered in the book are:
- Hummingbirds in flight
- photographing woodpeckers
- birds in a cactus
- photographing Bluebirds
- attracting birds to feeders
- using water or fruits to attract birds
- how to choose the right perches
- ground birds on stumps
- owls
- kingfishers
- water birds
- birds in flight

Every topic is explained in detail with pictures of the set-ups Alan uses and what he does to get the perfect shot. This all is illustrated with many of the best bird pictures ever published in a book about nature photography.

The writing style is very easy to follow and very inspiring.

On a little more than 100 pages, the book contains more practical tips than most other books on nature photography.
Don’t worry if you don’t live in North America. The tips and tricks can be applied everywhere in the world. I try to use a lot of Alan’s tips during this spring and summer and I already found a few places where I will create my own set-ups.
I live in southern Germany and there we don’t have all the species described in the books. But what works for Bluebirds in North America can also work for a European Robin, a Song Thrush or a Blue Tit.

Alan’s Book is one of the best publications on bird photography I’ve read. I highly recommend this outstanding E-book to every bird and nature photographer, no matter how experienced you are. You will definitely learn something from Alan.

More information:
Product Description at the Birds as Art store

Alan Murphy’s website. Be sure to visit. The Website has many amazing images and a very interesting blog. Alan also offers workshops where you can learn from the master himself.

A new article about choosing the right camera for bird photography is now available:
Choosing a digital SRL camera for bird photography
This replaces an older article published earlier on this page.
There are many choices today when it comes to choosing the right camera for photographing birds. If you are interested in bird photography but don’t know which camera to choose, read the article!

You may also like:
Choosing a lens for bird photography.

Famous North American nature photographer D. Robert Franz recently published several posts about the Canon EOS 7D on his blog.
The last blog post is about photographing birds in flight.
Robert confirms what many other photographers – including me – also experienced: The EOS 7D is a fantastic camera for photographing birds in flight.
I have many keepers with the EOS 7D together with my Canon EF 4/500L IS and EF 4/300L IS lenses.
Keep in mind that the AF of the EOS 7D is a complex tool. It has many different options and it will take some time to master. Once you know how to handle the camera, it is only your imagination, creativity and passion that will decide what pictures you take with the 7D. Have a look at Robert’s blog post and see his amazing flight shots to get some inspiration:
Canon 7D and Birds in Flight

A new article about choosing the right lens for bird photography is now available:
Choosing a lens for bird photography.
This replaces an older article published earlier on this page.

If you are interested in bird photography but don’t know which lens to choose, read the article!

I just came across a wonderful guide by Doug Brown on how to setup your EOS 7D with a special focus on photographing birds, especially birds in flight.

I think Doug has collected many great tips and a lot of information in this guide. I highly recommend reading this guide if you own a Canon EOS 7D and use it for bird photography (or any other photography).

Here is the link:
Setting Up Your New Canon 7D