I'm sure all wildlife watchers dream of one day taking that award-winning photo that will make them rich and famous. Obviously, we can't all win, but it's great simply to take a good enough shot to keep the memories alive.
Regular readers will be familiar with the photos of Jon Evans, our volunteer photographer. He's able to take some stunning images thanks in part ot the expensive equipment he uses, but mainly due to his skill, patience, and eye for the photo. But these skills are not avaialble to everyone.
Never fear. It's possible to take some great wildlife shots with a small, cheap camera. I use a Fuji Finepix S1730 bridge camera. It's small (but not a true compact), cost less than £200, yet has a 15x zoom and superb macro. This is perfectly adequate to take landscape shots, and the macro is great for plants and insects. Birds are more of a challenge, but sometimes I get lucky, espeically with some of our bigger species - ducks, herons, etc. It's great for mammals, too, especially the bigger ones.
Now, I don't profess to be good photographer, and I certainly rarely have the time to wait for the right shot, but I carry a camera with me at all times and have managed to take several shots of which I'm quite pleased. Working at Minsmere puts me at an advantage, as it increases my chances of being lucky. Take yesterday, for instance, when strolling back to the office from Bittern Hide I came across a group of six red deer hinds that allowed me to appraoch really closely. As I was late for a meeting, I only time for a couple of shots, but was quite pleased with this one.
I've also recently managed to take some good insect shots, such as this comma on blackberries, which I hope help to show that you don't need to have a big lens to take great wildlife photos. Go on and give it a try for yourself. Let us see you photos too by sharing them in our gallery or via our Facebook pages.