When Gary Winterton heads out into the Utah wilderness for his photography sessions, he thinks and reacts like a hunter. He studies animal behavior and taps into his knowledge of their habitats and sensory defense mechanisms—and his Tamron lenses helps him get the shots he wants without spooking the animals or weighing him down. “Weight is a big factor when you’re in the outdoors, so I love the fact that if you take a couple of Tamron lenses with you, it’s the same weight as if you took just one of the other competitor’s lenses,” he says.

Winterton packs several Tamron lenses when he’s traversing the rugged terrain, including the 18-270 VC, the 17-50 VC, and the 200-500. “The 18-270 is one of my favorite Tamron lenses: It's light and versatile, and with the addition of the Vibration Compensation, it's truly a do-it-all lens,” he says. “I love the 200-500 for its ability to reach out and capture those long-distance wildlife photos—with the crop factor when using an APS-C sensor and this lens, I can deliver truly amazing pictures that are clean and crisp.

The 17-50 VC is another lens Winterton often relies on. “It's fast (f/2.8) in low light or indoors—I can get creative wild-angle nature shots with incredible background blur and showstopping detail. I've also used this lens to produce some of my favorite action shots of my kids playing indoor sports.”

Winterton also has started experimenting with the new 70-300 VC lens: “I’m looking forward to really getting to tap into the versatility of the 70-300 VC lens more—the range that it offers is phenomenal, and because it’s designed for cameras with the APS-C sensor, the crop factor gives it extra oomph.”

Winterton, who travels around Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, Canada, and Alaska in addition to his home state, focuses on big-game animals such as elk, deer, and moose; water fowl such as geese, ducks, and pheasants; and fish. “We live in the field, so we’re out every season,” he explains. “For big-game animals, the water fowl and other birds, we’re out in the fall through the winter months and into the early spring. Then, in the spring through the summer, we’re out fishing in the streams and the lakes.”

Before you can even start to think about how you’re going to actually compose your pictures, you have to understand how animals react to their environment—and to interlopers in the environment. “An animal’s defensive mechanisms are scent, sound, and vision, in that order,” Winterton explains. “Scent travels the farthest on the wind, sound also travels on the wind, and sight is limited to the animals’ field of vision. I think a lot of new photographers don’t understand how these animals protect themselves from predators. Once you understand that, you can get really close, lock down your tripod, and get great pictures if you use technology to your advantage.”

Scent is the most important animal sense to be aware of when you’re out in the field. “They can smell you a mile away,” says Winterton. “If you put yourself downwind and below the habitat the animals are in and move quietly up with the wind in your face, they’ll never know you’re coming.”

Winterton advises outdoor photographers to think like the hunters do. “You see outdoor photographers heading out to take pictures in their jeans—they need to take a page out of the hunter’s book,” he says. “I wear camouflage clothing that has scent-blocker technology built into it: If you can bring your scent trail down, you’ll have a better chance of getting close. There are several camouflage patterns that will match the type of vegetation and terrain in your local area, and that scent technology keeps human odors inside the clothing. This clothing is also extremely comfortable: It’s thin, light clothing that you can wear on the warmest days and then layer up on the coolest of days. There are also a number of scent products out there that you can spray on the outside of your clothing to remove human odor. You can check out sites such as Sportsman’s Warehouse (www.sportsmanswarehouse.com) to find products that work for this type of thing.”

Be aware of the animals’ sight and sound sensitivity as well. “You might have something in your gear that reflects a lot of light or that isn’t a color that would be found naturally in that environment,” Winterton says. “We’re also so used to those normal sounds that humans make, such as the sound of Velcro as you open up your bag, caribiners clanging, zippers, the sound of something clinking against your tripod—all sounds that wouldn’t appear in an animal’s natural environment. They hear these things and know: ‘Man is in the forest!’ It’s like people who have never been to New York City: The first time they go, they’re overwhelmed by the sounds of the trains, the cabs, and the people. But people who have been there for awhile don’t even notice the sounds. If you can head into the outdoors and be ultra-conscious of all of this, you’ll have more success at getting close to the wildlife and getting great shots.”

Once you’re in as close as you can get, using a longer focal length helps you get even closer without being intrusive. “I always tell people that their camera is only as good as the glass they put on the front of it,” Winterton says. “A lens like the 70-300 is going to be invaluable in situations like these: It gives you the opportunity to get great pictures without pressuring the animals—they just don’t know you’re there. You can reach out, get good, clean, crisp pictures, and you’ll be able to come back to those areas because you haven’t bothered the animals.”

Winterton tries to time his photo shoots for optimum times of day and season to best capture the wildlife before him. “You have to understand where they’ll be and when they’ll be exhibiting the most interesting behaviors,” he says. “You want to watch them doing what comes naturally, especially when they feel the urge of Mother Nature to breed. That’s when certain unique behaviors start emerging: You'll see the most incredible displays, such as when the biggest bull elks start challenging each other, rolling in the mud and flinging the mud off.”

Many of the animals Winterton shoots are nocturnal, meaning they’re out in the early morning looking for a place to settle down for the day; in the evening, they come out again. “Understanding these patterns allows you to capture their behavior as they start their evening,” he says. “You can sit and watch a big buck or bull elk approach the open field from where he’s been resting all day—you can see how he tests the wind, smells it, tastes it, to check for predators in the open field.”

For animals on the move, Winterton usually shoots in shutter priority mode. “I opt for a little quicker shutter speed, typically somewhere between 1/350th and 1/500th of a second, because I want to be able to stop that action,” he explains. “I’ll set my ISO to somewhere between 500 and 800—when you’re in the shadows in the late afternoon, for example, you’re going to have enough sensitivity to the light with a faster shutter speed to stop that action, especially when you’re handholding the camera. When I know I’m going to have a little more time, I’ll go into manual; that gives me a chance to set the camera up just a little more and get more creative, focusing more on the aperture rather than simply slowing down the shutter speed to get better depth-of-field. But when I’m out and about, I’m always in shutter priority. Animals don’t like to wait for you!”

Winterton, who uses a polarizer when he’s going after his fish shots, finds the 70-300 to be an ideal lens for this purpose. “This is the type of lens that lets you get beautiful close-ups of all of the beautiful colors and patterns on the fish when you’re holding it out of the water for a few seconds after you’ve caught it,” he says. “Plus, it’s hard when you’re standing in the water or on a slippery bank, because you can’t use a tripod. Here’s where the Vibration Compensation feature makes all the difference—it helps you get clean, crisp, vibrant photos of your friend showing off his catch of the day.”

The VC capability on the Tamron lenses in Winterton’s arsenal also comes into play during the low-light situations that he often finds himself in as he’s tracking his subjects. “When it’s later in the day and shadowy and the sun is moving down, you have to really know your camera and lens and what they’re capable of doing,” he says. “These are the times of day when the wildlife tends to expose themselves the most, and the VC feature enables you to handhold the camera when necessary and get good, clean shots in the low light.”

Winterton recommends shooting in RAW in the back country. “It’s an absolute must,” he says. “I always err to just slightly underexpose my pictures in RAW out in the field—I know I’m going to have that faster shutter speed, and it might be slightly underexposed, but I’m going to get that crisp stop in the action with the animal looking at me. Then, in post-production, I can always go back in and simply bump it up one stop to get exactly what I need.”

For more of Gary Winterton’s work, go to www.hookedonutah.com.