How to take Silhouette shot in Africa
Silhouette photos of animals are quintessential part of African Savannah, there is no trip complete without them.
Compose | Compose
Since these photos are shot exclusively in low light conditions, you need not bother about details in the subject and focus more on composition. For same try to make sure sun is behind the subject or at some desired angle you want it to be
Composition plays the biggest part as how you want to shoot the subject and what elements to include and exclude. For example Including Acacia tree in your photo would tie the photo to the African Savannah
Go full Manual Mode
Take control of your camera i.e. don’t let you camera make decisions for you in regards to aperture, shutter speed, ISO and white balance. Check if your camera supports manual mode (mostly all DSLR support them) and switch to same.
Do not use Auto /Aperture priority / Shutter priority or any other modes you camera might have
Camera Settings
If you are reading this then you already have a DSLR camera or mirror less camera. I will try to go thru few settings you can put in to get a perfect silhouette shot. Mostly you won’t be able to get these kind of photos from your mobile or tablet camera
Color Temperature
The ‘orange-ish’ glow in these photographs are is mostly achieved by shooting at dusk / dawn coupled with in camera white balance settings
While you are in camera white balance setting, look for custom kelvin / color temperature depending upon camera you are using, dial up the kelvin/ temperature to highest value i.e. 8000–12000k
ISO
Low light = Noise ! Since we are not bothered much about the details in subject and shooting in low light, would dial down the ISO to somewhere between 100–400 for low noise
Aperture
A Silhouette is mostly a Two dimensional photo with little or no depth, i will close the aperture to somewhere in the neighborhood of f8-f11 and try to bring everything in fame in focus
Shutter Speed
Again you don't want your images to be blurred and would keep optimally high shutter speed i.e in range of 1/1000 - 1/2000
Finally trust you eyes
Adjust and play with values above to get desired the shot, some times you have waiting for right light to get the perfect shot . If you think the you are not getting the desired orange glow, then i would suggest shooting at Dawn or Dusk when sun is not visible in horizon
If you like me to post more about basics of photography / DSLR, then please comment below