Wildlife photography books

I did a search first but didn't find much for title recommendations. I'm eyeing Steve Perry's ebook, Secrets To Stunning ​Wildlife Photography. Any other recommendations for good books on wildlife photography? I'm looking for books that deal more with mammals than birds although some focus on birds is definitely fine.

John Shaw's book was my bible back in the day. He has a website and blog.
This free online book was useful for digital photography and birds in flight. http://www.digitalbird​photography.com/cover.​html

Do they give you the book if you get the job?

Pippan wrote in post #18327333
Do they give you the book if you get the job?

Huh?

Larry Johnson wrote in post #18327332
John Shaw's book was my bible back in the day. He has a website and blog.
This free online book was useful for digital photography and birds in flight. http://www.digitalbird​photography.com/cover.​html

Thanks, I'll check out John Shaw's stuff. The digital bird photography ebook is outstanding. I found that a while back and it's full of so much info.

NateD wrote in post #18327397
Huh?

Not sure why, but the link in Larry's message originally took me to a job seeking site. I tried it several times. Now it goes to a bird photography book site so I don't know if he changed it or there was a gremlin at play.

Pippan wrote in post #18327472
Not sure why, but the link in Larry's message originally took me to a job seeking site. I tried it several times. Now it goes to a bird photography book site so I don't know if he changed it or there was a gremlin at play.

Hahaha, ah okay.

NateD wrote in post #18320704
I did a search first but didn't find much for title recommendations. I'm eyeing Steve Perry's ebook, Secrets To Stunning ​Wildlife Photography. Any other recommendations for good books on wildlife photography? I'm looking for books that deal more with mammals than birds although some focus on birds is definitely fine.

Very few informational or instructional books have ever been written on the subject of photographing wild mammals. So there isn't much out there to find.

Here is one that I know of, but honestly it probably won't tell you anything new. I have the book, read it several years ago, and was quite disappointed because it didn't really offer anything helpful at all:
Moose Peterson's Guide to Wildlife Photography: Conventional and Digital Techniques
http://www.barnesandno​ble.com …LGoP1755&k_clic​kid=3x1755

Another book about photographing mammals is Wildlife Cameraman, by Jim Kjelgaard. It is a novel, not a how-to book. I have read this and I loved it! A fun adventure that speaks a lot about photography. Very interesting to see the differences in photography between now and when the book was written in the mid-1900s.
https://www.amazon.com …0?_encoding=UTF​8&qid=&sr=

http://www.ebay.com …4b6e2a:g:jF4AAO​Swo4pYjPP9

Alan Murphy has written a couple of very good e-books about bird photography, but you are much more interested in mammals, and his bird techniques really couldn't be properly applied to mammals because they involve set-ups at bird feeding stations.

Here's another that has a lot of info on mammals:
The Complete Guide to Wildlife Photography/How to Get Close and Capture Animals by Joe McDonald
http://www.ebay.com …55fe17:g:Ga8AAO​SwUKxYlkEM

Joe is a really nice, great guy! But a lot of his work involved photographing game farm wildlife models, so some of the contents of the book may not be entirely pertinent for someone who only aims to shoot 'wild and free' wildlife.

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Hi Tom,
Thank you for the great response. Joe's books look great and well reviewed.

I was a big fan of Jim Kjelgaard growing up and read many of his books about dogs. They impacted me in a profound way and I think might have something to do with the fact that I'm now a dog trainer by profession. I'm looking forward to reading that.


II feel comfortable enough with settings and such and am really am looking for techniques for scouting and getting close, and to do it well enough to hopefully observe and capture interesting life events. Do you think it would be worth looking at resources for hunters?

NateD wrote in post #18327897
I was a big fan of Jim Kjelgaard growing up and read many of his books about dogs.

That's awesome! I read his books when I was a teenager, and still read them every now and again as an adult. His books filled me with a sense of wonder for outdoor adventure, and that sense of wonder still persists to this very day!

NateD wrote in post #18327897
Do you think it would be worth looking at resources for hunters?

No. And I say that as someone who spent 30 years of his life as an extremely avid hunter, and the last 10 years as an extremely avid wildlife photographer.

The objectives of hunters are so completely different than the objectives of wildlife photographers. As photographers, the things that are absolutely essential to us are completely meaningless to hunters:

We need to take into account the direction of the light source, and the quality of the light. This means nothing / very little to hunters.

We need to have the animal in a space that is aesthetically pleasing - the surrounding vegetation must be that which will expose properly and look good - this means nothing to hunters.

We need to capture an animal against a visually compelling background, and hence we try as much as we can to scout out locations that have aesthetically pleasing or dramatic backdrops. Hunters couldn't care less about what the backgrounds look like when they are trying to get within range of their quarry.

We need to capture the animal when it is striking an aesthetically pleasing pose, whereas the hunter actually prefers a slightly quartering away position - which is not aesthetically pleasing at all.

We usually want to capture an animal when it is looking in the general direction of the camera, so that we can see its face clearly, whereas a hunter prefers it if the animal is looking away from him/her so that it doesn't see him/her.

I could go on and on about the differences between hunters objectives and photographers objectives, but that would be going way off topic. Suffice it to say that I don't think that hunting books - or trail cameras or most other hunting gear - is very helpful to wildlife photographers.

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For birds, the best book I've come across is 'The Handbook of Bird Photography' by Varesvuo, Peltomaki and Mate. For a more general book, including mammals, my favourite is 'Wildife Photography Field Skills and Techniques.' by Paul Hobson. It's a self-published book so it might not have some of the graphic design polish of other offers, but's not absolutely packed full of detailed information. It's Britishcentric in it's specieis, so no apex predators, but I reckon plenty will translate to other locations.

http://www.paulhobson.​co.uk …life-photography-book.php