Capture the Moment!

Here are all my posts on photography, covering techniques, trips, research, exhibitions, talks and workshops. Watch out for my latest article every Saturday.

I’ve also written dozens of articles for Expert Photography and Camera Reviews.

If you’d like to contribute a guest post on any aspect of photography, please email me at nick@nickdalephotography.com. My standard fee is £50 plus £10 for each dofollow link.

Note: Some blog posts contain affiliate links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Where to See the Big Five

For most people who go on safari in Africa, it’s all about the Big Five: lions, leopards, African bush elephants, black and white rhinoceroses and African (or Cape) buffaloes. Back in the days of big game hunting, those were the five most dangerous beasts, so hunters prized them as trophies to take back home and put on their walls.

The Slow Pan

I took this shot on an Exodus trip to Kicheche Bush Camp in 2018 with Paul Goldstein.

Paul’s a great fan of the slow pan to heighten the sense of energy in action shots, and I’m now his disciple!

Every picture tells a story: Bear Gills

I’m a wildlife photographer, and this is one in an occasional series of posts about my best photographs. I’ll tell you how I took them and break down the shot into the idea, the location, the equipment, the settings, the technique and any post-processing necessary.

How to Shoot a Bear

Brooks Falls is a waterfall in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, and every July around a million salmon try to jump it in order to get back to their spawning grounds - and the brown bears are there to meet them!

How to Shoot a Lion

Shadows can either be your enemy or your friend - you just have to know how to use them. If you don’t shoot with the sun directly behind you, then there’s a risk that you’ll get more shadows on the animal and that they’ll be a distraction, making it harder to see its facial features and unnecessarily complicating the image.

Every picture tells a story: Fly Bee

I’m a wildlife photographer, and this is one in an occasional series of posts about my favourite photographs. I’ll tell you how I took them and break down the shot into the idea, the location, the equipment, the settings, the technique and any post-processing.

How to Shoot an Elephant

First of all, I have to confess that the elephant is not my favourite animal. They don’t look very much like us, so anthropomorphic expressions are almost impossible to capture; they spend a lot of time feeding and very little time doing anything else; and they’re so…grey!

How to Shoot a Cheetah

I’ve taken more pictures of cheetahs than of any other animal, so here are a few things I’ve learned along the way…

How to Shoot a Tiger

If you want to shoot a tiger with a gun, I can’t help you - in fact, nobody can! - but if you want to use a camera, I may have an idea for you…

Webinar: The Essential Guide to Wildlife Photography with Nick Dale

I held a webinar for The Societies of Photographers yesterday, so I thought I’d share the link with everyone. I hope it’s useful.

Camera set-up for Nikon D810 and D850

I recently watched a few videos and read a few articles on Steve Perry’s website, and they inspired me to share my camera settings with you. Thanks, Steve!

Safari Destination Guide

I’ve visited Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe on safari and worked as the Resident Photographer for four months at various camps in Tanzania and Kenya. Here’s a quick overview of the major safari locations in Africa, including a fact file for each country and my personal impressions of the places I’ve visited myself.

What has Lightroom Ever Done for us?

…Apart from cropping images, adding vignettes, changing highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, chromatic aberration, camera profile etc, etc, etc!

How to Stand out from the Herd

When you’re taking shots of wildlife, it’s very easy to end up with ‘record shots’ rather than what a friend of mine calls ‘printables’ - in other words, pictures that you’d be happy to print and hang on your wall.

The ones that got away

I get nervous before I go on photography trips. Part of that is just worrying about travel arrangements, visas and packing everything I need, but another part of it is worrying that I won't get the shots I want. Here are a few examples of 'the ones that got away'.

Lightroom workflow

A few years ago, I started doing all my photographic post-processing in Lightroom. It's the program used by most professional photographers and is reasonably user-friendly, I got to grips with Lightroom mostly by watching a very useful series of YouTube videos by Anthony Morganti, but this article is just a description of my basic workflow.

Booking your first safari

When I was young, it was a dream of mine to go on safari in Africa, but I thought it would be such a special trip that I saved it for my honeymoon - which never arrived!

How do I make money from photography?

The obvious question for a lot of amateur photographers is 'How do I make money from photography?' The answer, unfortunately, is that I don't know.

Basics of photography

When you buy (or borrow) your first digital SLR, everything looks different, and it can be a bit worrying. What are all these buttons and dials for? Why is it so heavy? Where do I start? How do I change the shutter speed? All these are very good questions, and this is the place to find the answers!

Rules of composition

As everyone knows, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" - but that doesn't stop me trying to do both!