Bill Silliker, Jr.

The Camera Hunter

Aspiring wildlife photographers often overlook the importance of using the one piece of gear most essential to consistently bringing home trophy pictures of the critters of the Maine woods. Any guesses as to what that is?

Those who said the cursed tripod can cruise for the rest of this column. The rest of you should pay careful attention to every word if you're serious about camera hunting. And since the aim of this column is so that you will learn to bring home better pictures, there will be a test.

Let's first explore the ups and downs of the cursed tripod. But wait. If it's so essential for making great pictures, why say it's cursed?

Hmmmm. Let me count the ways. A leg jams as you set up in a hurry; a leg loosens and slowly telescopes shorter and shorter; a tripod doubles its weight as you carry it up Katahdin; the ground is so mooshy you have to keep adjusting it to keep the camera level; or you get so tangled in a "wait a minute" bush that you miss the shot. Those are just some of the downs. If you want to improve your wildlife photography, you need to learn to deal with them.

Now let's look at the ups. All good wildlife photographers use a tripod most of the time and learn to love it as much as they hate it. Why do they love their tripod? Partly it’s because the tripod takes the weight of a heavy telephoto lens off their hands. Partly it’s because they've learned to use their tripod to make sharp pictures. And mostly because they know that their opportunity with that moose, whitetail, hawk, or eagle will not be wasted.

All sportsmen and women know how it feels to waste a special chance. The only difference with camera hunting is that you have a fuzzy photograph to show when you tell your story of the one that got away. The opportunity to bring home a real trophy is gone forever - except in your memory.

And if wildlife photography isn’t your thing? You can also use a tripod to get better scenic photographs. In fact, the best scenic photographers almost always use a tripod to get the most depth in their photographs, something they can only accomplish by using a slow shutter speed.

It's worth noting that the comment I make most often when critiquing the work of students at the nature photography courses I teach at L. L. Bean is to "watch out for camera shake". Camera shake ruins more nature photographs than anything, including exposure errors.

Sometimes that camera shake occurs from the use of a cheap tripod, which we'll review in a moment. More often it occurs from not using a tripod at all. You see, tripods aren't much fun to use, especially at first. They restrict your freedom to just lift the camera to your eye and fire.

An average healthy person can hand hold a camera for a sharp photograph if they use a shutter speed at least as fast, in part per second, as the fraction made by the number 1 over the lens length, in millimeters. Say you're using a 300mm lens. One over 300 = 1/300th of a second. The newer electronic cameras provide the specific choice of 1/300th of a second among their shutter speeds. The older mechanical cameras provide shutter speeds in increments of 1/125th, 1/250th, 1/500th, 1/1000th of a second, so using our rule of thumb we select a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second to have a good chance at sharp pictures when hand holding a 300mm telephoto lens. Unless you have one of the new Canon IS (image stabilization) or Nikon VR (vibration reduction) lenses, it’s wise to follow this rule. With the new lenses, some can hand hold a 400mm telephoto at the unbelievable shutter speed of 1/60^th of a second and get sharp results. But that’s a topic for a whole other column.

Hunters know that wildlife doesn't often show during the brightest parts of the average Maine day, let alone at the brightest lit places. The camera hunter similarly will have more success finding targets either early in the morning or late in the day, and usually at the edge of the forest where the light is less. In short, you'll be lucky to find wildlife in light that allows a shutter speed fast enough for hand holding your camera. The answer? Use a sturdy tripod. Note that the key word is sturdy.

Sturdier tripods do cost more. But the price of a good tripod pales compared to the cost of the rest of your gear. Several manufacturers sell tripod and head combinations for $150 to $200 that adequately support up to 400mm lenses. A very good tripod and head cost $500-1000, still a real bargain compared to a telephoto lens that can cost as much as $8000, even more! But pay less than a $100 and you're kidding yourself.

The better tripods have a head with a "quick release" device. You screw a plate that comes with the tripod head into the threaded hole on your telephoto lens or your camera body, and the plate snaps into place "quick" when you set up. The best ones have a locking mechanism to protect against the plate releasing quickly at the wrong time, say when you snag it on a limb hanging over a stream.

Catch yours in the good light.

Bill Silliker, Jr. teaches wildlife & nature photography for L.L. Bean's Outdoor Discovery Schools and has done the photography for 5 books, several of which he also wrote. He is editor of the website www.wildlifewatcher.com as well as for his own website at www.camerahunter.com

© Copyright 2000 Bill Silliker, Jr. all rights reserved.