Pixiq

Most books about wildlife will show you pictures taken with professional lenses at exotic locations. Mike Kiss uses three popular lenses and starts at home.

It's difficult not to like an eBook written by someone that uses three lenses to do all the work... and that uses almost the same lenses you use: Canon's 100mm macro and the versatile 100-400mm.

In fact, Mike Kiss  states right at the beginning of his eBook that "...all but two pictures presented in this guide were taken with either the Canon EOS 50D mounted with the EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM or EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, or the Canon EOS 7D with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM. The vast majority of the photos here were taken with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM which illustrate its versatility under different circumstances. Indeed if you only choose one lens for wildlife photography, one with a 100-400mm range or thereabouts will cover the bulk of the situations you may encounter. Mounting it on a cropped-frame body extends its reach, but it’s still remarkably versatile on a full-frame body."

I feel at home with this. George Lepp also said, in an article here at Pixiq, that he also has the 100-400mm  lens as the best choice for wildlife photography, and having followed George Lepps' advice and writtings for years at Outdoor Photographer (and I still do) I have to agree that Mike Kiss is also right. And going through his eBook I also discover that we use the lens for much the same subjects, although I do not have here, in Portugal, most of the animals he can find closer to his home. But from insects to birds and flowers, we all use the same lens.

Again, reading through the 70 pages of this first CameraLabs eBook, I found more points of contact with the writings from Mike Kiss:  same ways of resolving problems in this type of photography, some concepts about what it is all about, and the same respect for wildlife.

This is not an eBook about fantastic pictures taken with cameras and lenses you'll never be able to use. This is something down to earth, about projects you can start at your own doorstep, in the backyard, at the city's zoo.  And further away if you can and want to, but always on a level that is accessible to everyone. This eBook shows the work of someone that wants to go out in the wild and come back with images that show not just the species but the love for them. It's that experience that Mike Kiss shares in The Art of Wildlife Photography... While Respecting Animals and the Environment, to give you the whole title.

Mike Kiss is a wildlife photographer based in Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Canada, and in this eBook he explains how to approach and photograph different types of animals, birds and marine life, while always respecting the environment. There's a lot to read and although not all chapters can be used by everyone,there's a lot of information that you will retain and use under other circumstances.

The Art of Wildlife Photography has sections dedicated to photographing birds, small animals, large animals, insects, marine wildlife and urban wildlife. In each section Mike explains the challenges of getting great images with the minimum environmental impact and takes you behind the scenes of his excursions and shoots.

In the final section the photographer covers the choice of equipment, how to cope with different weather conditions, and ensuring your safety along with that of the subjects you're photographing. Throughout you'll see over 100 of Mike's photos making this a great book for anyone interested in becoming a better wildlife photographer, or who simply enjoys natural beauty.

The writing in the eBook is natural, sometimes you feel as if reading a friend's letter about something photographed just yesterday. And although you'll find a lot of information here that is common, the experience from Mike Kiss in the field and the explanations he gives for specific choices make this eBook a complete experience for absolute beginners or even for photographers that are already experienced in this area. There's always some info, tip or opinion that helps us to take some steps further. That's the great thing about photography reading. Most of the times you'll come across something that will point you in a new direction or help you to define new grounds. This eBook does that.

The Art of Wildlife Photography can be bought and downloaded easily. It's a 35MB PDF you can read in different devices. And because it's the first eBook from Camera Labs it is a must even for collector's. So go and buy it now, for $9.97 .