Five top wildlife photographers reveal their toughest shoot ever

Wildlife photographers often find themselves in the most inhospitable locations, in searing heat or freezing cold, or underwater with poor visibility. And even after extensive preparation for a shoot, animal species can be frustratingly elusive and sometimes dangerous, requiring the photographers to think on their feet and push their equipment to the limit.

Here, we ask five top photographers about the most difficult wildlife shoots they've ever done, and how they managed to get the shot.

1. Swimming in the open sea – Robert Marc Lehmann

There is no doubt that conservation photographer and filmmaker Robert Marc Lehmann's toughest ever shoot paid off – it earned him the German National Geographic Photographer of the Year title in 2015.

The location was an area of shallow water where grey seals go to rest, near Heligoland, a small archipelago off the north-west coast of Germany. But finding the seals was a challenge. "The only way to get there is by swimming for 2km, battling strong currents and big waves," Robert says. "The water is very cold, the seals are not used to humans and visibility is usually poor."

2. The shoot that broke the photographer's heart – Marina Cano

Canon Ambassador Marina Cano is an award-winning Spanish nature photographer who has specialised in capturing shots of African wildlife throughout her 10-year career. For Marina, what makes a wildlife shoot particularly challenging is its emotional impact. Her toughest moment happened while on a shoot in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa with the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III. She was following a pack of African wild dogs, also known as painted wolves.

"We waited for them to wake up from their afternoon nap, then in the early evening they went hunting," she says. "They don't kill like lions, who suffocate their prey… they just start eating. One time it was really, really hard because even though I was prepared for it, the prey in this case was something that I didn't expect.

"When I saw the baby oryx surrounded by all these wild dogs – and the mother, who was trying to protect the baby but couldn't – it was just terrible. That, for me, was my most challenging moment photographing wildlife."

Marina accepts that these situations are an inevitable part of the natural world and therefore wildlife photography. "You cannot do anything, just be a witness," she says. "In my work it's all about emotions, I think that's because I'm such an emotional person. I have to be stronger than my emotions to be able to take pictures of some of the things that are happening."

3. Sacrificing comforts for a killer sardine shot – Nadia Aly

Millions of sardines migrate along South Africa's east coast every year, and it's an astonishing thing to witness as the fish become a food source for dolphins, whales, sharks and sea birds. But photographing the 'sardine run' requires stamina and the ability to forget about modern comforts, says Nadia Aly, a wildlife photographer who specialises in underwater marine life.

"I've done it for six or seven years in a row for at least a month at a time," says Nadia. "You get up in the morning and it's 5°C. There's no toilet on the boat and you're going to be on it for 8-10 hours. There's no sunshade and you really just have to suck it up, because when you find action out there, it's the ocean's greatest event."

Nadia's main camera is a Canon EOS-1D X Mark II fitted with a Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens, but she also takes a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM lens attached. "I have multiple setups because you don't have time to change," she continues.

"You could go in the water and you could have a drop where you have 10 metres visibility. Then, you could be moving with the dolphins and then suddenly you're back to one metre visibility. You really don't understand the situation and your environment until you're actually in it. You need to work quickly, and you need to understand how to use your camera."

5. The endurance test – Markus Varesvuo

Although one might expect fast-moving birds in flight to be one of the most difficult things for a bird specialist to photograph, Finland-based Markus Varesvuo's most challenging shoot – because of the sheer endurance it involved – was photographing chicks hatching.

Markus, who has won a number of major awards for his bird photography and published several books, had initially set up his hide close to the nest of a capercaillie female incubating and hatching her chicks in Eastern Finland, near the Russian border. He was preparing for the long wait to get the shot he wanted, but wildlife often doesn't behave as expected.

"After an hour, when I looked through my lens, the female was already leaving with the chicks. I missed the first opportunity," he says. But he found another capercaillie nest, set up his hide and gradually moved closer and closer.

He was shooting with his Canon EOS-1D X fitted with a Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and a Canon Extender 1.4x III. This gave him a working focal length of 840mm, which was essential for keeping a certain distance from the nest so as not to disturb the bird.

During the wait in the hide, Markus perhaps only got three to five hours' sleep per day – but eventually he was rewarded with shots of the baby birds. "I was in the hide for about four days waiting for the chicks to hatch and that was quite a long time," he says. "I was really happy to get the picture."