Everything just felt wrong. I didn’t know how to carry the lens, hold it or even lock it into place! It felt as if I had grown a third arm or 11th finger; everything was awkward, and everything seemed to take longer and be so much more difficult. Over the last 9 years of doing travel photography I had a system for moving around quickly and getting the shots I wanted. I knew exactly how to pack to fit everything into my daypack, I knew how to decide what lenses to take, and how to travel light and minimal when it came to equipment. But now it was all wrong.

I introduced a Sigma telephoto lens into my photography routine and it was as if I had landed on another planet that I didn’t understand.  After 9 years of doing travel photography, I had regressed back to a ‘beginner’ status when it came to telephoto photography.

Every day we have a choice to make; we can sit and coast, or we can push ourselves. This trip to Wrangel Island was a chance to push myself.

Learning the Basics in Telephoto Photography

Extra Equipment

Luckily before I left on the trip, I asked my friend and photographer, Gary, who had used the lens before what advice he had. “You have to get a monopod”, was he only advice. I told him that I had a tripod already – but he said a tripod would be too bulky and slow for the type of photography this would be where I was hiking out on the tunda and constantly moving. So I purchased a SIRUI P-326 6 Section Carbon Fiber Monopod and left my tripod at my storage unit.

However if you aren’t moving around as much as I was with the lens on Wrangel Island, a tripod would be best for this lens as it would make it even more stable. And I quickly learned that a stable base for zoom lenses of this size is critical. I normally use the 3 Legged Thing Brian Tripod – it’s perfect for travel – it’s light and versatile. (Learn more about the 3 Legged Thing Evolution 3 Pro Brian Carbon Fiber Tripod with Airhed 3 Ball Head)

I also thought about getting a new photo gear/lens backpack, but decided against it as I really liked my system of the over the shoulder bag I use. I probably would recommend getting a better solution for carrying it long term, but since I was just using this temporarily I couldn’t really justify the expense of a cool new bag at this point.

The Weight

This was my first foray into lenses with handles – a.k.a. tripod collar. Why does a lens have a handle you ask? Because they are big, bulky, and heavy – and the handle allows the lens to be mounted to a tripod. When the weight of a lens reaches a certain threshold, it’s no longer safe to mount the camera to a tripod/monopod as the weight of that lens would put too much strain on the lens mount. The tripod collar is essential for tripod/monopod shooting. So consider that ‘handle’ protection.

Telephoto photography perfect when you can’t get close yourself.

This lens was a lot to handle…sort of what I imagine dating Pamela Anderson would be like. The lens weighs 4.3 pounds, so the first thing I noticed was my sore back and shoulder blades after taking it out the first day and shooting with it. I do understand that if I were to spend more time with this size lens, I would get used to it – and have some ripped arms/biceps to show off too! This is why I’ve never seen a chubby wildlife photographer I guess.

The Settings

I pretty quickly learned that shooting moving wildlife with a long lens has many different challenges than my typical travel and landscape photography. Luckily, it took us 5 days to actually navigate to Wrangel Island on the Spirit of Enderby Polar Expedition ship, so I had time to practice and screw up a lot before I had my first polar bear sighting.

Shutter Speed

High shutter speed helps minimize the camera shake and ensures sharper images. Even the slightest movement is magnified by a telephoto lens – it’s simple physics…

“To illustrate the effect of movement on a long lens, imagine pointing a pen and then moving your wrist ever so slightly, the end of the pen moves a small amount. Now take a yardstick, hold it the same way and move your wrist the same amount – notice how much more movement there is at the end of the yardstick compared to the pen. The same thing holds true for long lenses in relationship to shorter ones.” — E.J. Peiker

Bright days are your friend as they will allow you to shoot at higher shutter speeds and keep the ISO low giving you less noise. I learned pretty quickly to put the shutter as fast as I possibly could. Let’s just say that I had lots of fuzzy shots to begin with!

I could get sharp shots when they weren’t moving…

Snowy Owl Taking flight…not quite as crisp

But I got much better over the 2 weeks of practicing every day!

Focus

I used center point focus mainly as that way I ensured that I was getting the subject in focus. This was easy with the slower moving polar bears and muskoxen, but challenging with the flying birds.

Tracking Your Subject

First – when you are at 300 to 500mm, it’s really hard to locate your subject through the viewfinder at times! I learned pretty quickly that when I saw something in the distance, I had to first find it in my viewfinder at a shorter focal length (like 100mm), and then zoom for the close-up so that I could keep the subject in my viewfinder. This was particularly helpful for shooting close-ups of birds on the bird cliffs. However on the fast moving shots, even this didn’t work. The birds would dive off the 300 foot cliffs and take off from the water so quickly, I had to learn to track them with the lens, and often found it easier to keep the focal length at 350 mm and then crop in on the shot in post processing.

Shooting From Zodiacs and Hand Holding

Bobbing and trying to get balance in a zodiac

In addition to tracking the fast moving birds, I had the challenge of shooting from the unstable base of a zodiac raft bobbing in large ocean swells. My monopod didn’t work in this expedition zodiac environment, so this meant I had to do hand held in the zodiacs. Eventually I found my sea legs and was able to shoot at a high enough shutter speed and stay steady. I tried to stay crouched close to the zodiac floor to remain more stable and braced both elbows against my thighs or on the zodiac sides. Of course when doing handheld you will also have to use your left hand to hold the lens as it’s just too awkward and heavy otherwise. However in this handheld situation, check your settings regularly as you want to make sure that your shutter is super fast when doing handheld shots as it’s very hard to eliminate camera shake even with stabilizers on the lens.

This shot actually worked…but I must admit – it was an accident!