Perhaps nothing is worse for a wildlife photographer than the sinking feeling after realizing the series of pictures you just shot of an elusive animal are over exposed, grainy, blurry, or otherwise unusable.
The importance of establishing an in-camera work flow cannot be overstated.
We hear of workflows throughout photography processes, but none are as important as the one you establish for actually shooting the pictures.
In many photography shoots, second chances aren't afforded.
It's critical to get photos that can at least be processed and improved with software after the shoot.
But when a simple workflow isn't followed, you risk winding up with images that can't be recovered, even with the most elaborate post-shoot processing programs.
When shooting wildlife, I make a point of following a step by step process for preparing to hit the woods.
First, I make sure I have a well charged battery installed and when appropriate, a spare in my vest.
I then set white balance to correspond to the current lighting conditions.
Then, I set my ISO using the lowest reasonable setting, as the high ISO ranges can create grain in your photos.
Next, I select my shooting mode.
For wildlife, I usually select shutter priority mode because my subjects are likely to be moving, some at high speeds.
I begin with a shutter speed of 800; enough to freeze most animal activity.
I then make sure my exposure meter is set.
On my camera, I can select spot, center-weighted, or matrix exposure reading.
I begin with center-weighted because my subjects usually fill less than 25 percent of the frame and I want the overall exposure to be metered off the subject.
This allows me to crop later and have the predominance of the image properly exposed.
Spot metering would be too tight and wouldn't properly expose any scenery immediately around the subject for post processing.
Next, I make sure I have at least one empty, high capacity storage card in the camera (mine holds two).
Finally, although it may sound obvious, remove the lens cap.
We've probably all experienced forgetting to remove the cap at one time or another.
These steps should become instinctive.
At first, it may be helpful to make a sort of checklist.
Early on, I kept one in a small plastic sleeve on my camera strap written on the back of a business card.
I no longer need it because the steps are ingrained in my process.
Every time I go to shoot, I run this checklist.
Before I established this workflow, I missed several priceless wildlife shots by having my camera set to the last image I captured.
Workflow is important in most aspects of photography, but most critically to the in-camera, capture process.
Establish one early in your endeavors and you'll certainly reduce the frustration of having missed a once-in-a-lifetime shot because a camera setting was incompatible with current conditions.