Pixiq

I love shooting in the rain. Providing you have some means of protecting the camera, it is perfectly safe and you can get more original shots of the natural world than remaining a fine weather photographer. There is always a small towel stashed into my photo pack, for mopping up any surplus water. Then, depending on the intensity of the rain, I use four different ways to protect my camera.

 1.         A thick plastic bag (check no safety holes present) slipped over the back of the camera is secured around the lens with a rubber band – making sure not to restrict an external focusing ring, if there is one. Useful in light rain.

 2.         A hat umbrella provides a flexible way to work and is fine for protecting the camera plus a shortish lens – providing rain falls straight down. In this way, I can work on the hoof and be more flexible with a macro lens or a short tele lens.

3.         Waterproof rain cover for longer lenses and heavier rain falling at any angle. This is the best protection for any camera – especially with a long lens – in heavy rain. Be sure to get one that fixes securely so it does not flap around (will scare animals and let in rain). When taking brown bears in the sea, with a 500mm lens, at Hallo Bay in Alaska, on a very windy day, some rain did get inside the lens. The best way to clear the fogging of an internal lens element is to rotate the lens in your hands, beneath either a car heater or a hair dryer.

4.         Brolly on telescopic arm

After seeing so many cyclists in China with an umbrella fixed to their bike handlebars on a telescopic arm, I asked my guide (a keen photographer) where I could buy one. He thought it was a brilliant idea and insisted on buying a collapsible umbrella, plus a telescopic arm and took them to his cousin who happened to be a welder. Within minutes I had a bracket for fixing the arm to the top of my Gitzo tripod at one end and to the umbrella at the other.

This freed up both hands completely, so I could leave the set-up to get something out of my photo pack or have a drink/snack. CAUTION: On no account, try this in windy locations, because an unattended tripod could easily blow over.

Falling rain is one of the most difficult shots to photograph so that it is clearly visible. Fine rain won't show up at all and even stair rods are best revealed with back or side lighting against a dark backdrop.

Why bother, you my ask, when rain can be generated digitally in postproduction? However, I have yet to see a digitally generated image that looks authentic, because raindrops are not equal sized, so the streaks need to be quite random and unequal in length.

 Rain washes dust from rocks and plants in dusty locations – reviving natural colors to produce a more vibrant image. This was brought home to me years ago in Xi'an (of Chinese terracotta warriors' fame) where I first visited in the 1980's when the city wall was being rebuilt.  The whole city, was shrouded in a uniform drab beige dust layer, but after heavy rain fell, the city was transformed as green trees appeared overnight, like magic.

Raindrops provide several options – most simply, straightforward shots of rain on petals, leaves or feathers. Whereas, drops captured on spiders' webs or in hairy stems or caterpillars viewed against a dark ground, appear to sparkle like jewels. Using an atomizer to spray water on petals or leaves never quite replicates natural rain, because the drops end up appearing equal sized, whereas true raindrops appear in varied sizes on the same petal.

Get in really close with a macro lens to take raindrops on plants to show how they act like natural fisheye lenses to encapsulate a flower close behind them or even a mountain peak further away.

After rain stops, mammals twist their head back and forth to remove surplus water. This is a fun action to capture with a slow shutter speed so that streaks of water radiate from the body.  Animals emerging from water – such as bears, otters, monkeys and dogs – also do this. You have to anticipate the shot by selecting continuous motor drive and keeping the camera focused on the animal, because it is all over very quickly.

I can hear rain falling on the roof, so I'm off!