This One Tool Will Immediately Improve Your Wildlife Photos

Here is how to immediately improve your wildlife photos with one simple tool. Buy a gimbal head on your monopod.

What Is A Gimbal Head

A Gimbal is a specialized head for your monopod or tripod. Once balanced it will allow you to effortlessly tilt the camera. What is tilt? Tilt is the up and down movement that allows us to capture birds in flight or other wildlife moving up and down trees. Plus, it allows us to swing our camera from a high vantage point to a low one.

How A Gimbal Improves Your Wildlife Photos

Using a monopod for your wildlife photography has big advantages. However, if you're just screwing the camera directly onto it or worse, using a ball head, the results will not be great. Therefore, consider buying a gimbal.

Ball heads and other monopod mounts put the pivot point below your heavy telephoto lens. As a result, once you loosen them the camera can flop around. However, Gimbals don't work like that. In fact, the center of gravity and pivot on a gimbal is above or at the level of your lens. As a result, the lens will stay put as long as it's properly balanced.

Should You Buy A Gimbal?

The truth is not everyone needs a gimbal. In fact, some people prefer to handhold their cameras when photographing wildlife.

However, if you're using large heavy lenses to photograph wildlife then buying a gimbal makes a lot of sense. Too, if you're photographing fast moving animals a gimbal is great. Plus, if you photograph wildlife in lower light situations such as deep in the forest, then a gimbal is ideal.

Don Orkoskey is a nature and wildlife photographer based in Atlanta. He's the owner of WDO Photography and teaches photography independently as well as through the Atlanta School of Photography.

Don's work can be licensed or purchased here. Contact Don for more information.