Whitetails probably present the greatest all around challenge for the camera hunter in Maine.  You need to get closer than the average bow hunter to get a picture of one that really fills the frame, even with a long telephoto lens.  To successfully do that, you need to get past their extremely acute sense of smell and equally excellent ability to spot any movement.  You also can't afford to make any noise. If you're attempting to still hunt deer, all of these factors come into play and make it very difficult to get up on a deer without your only picture opportunity being a shot of its east end headed west.   

     You also need to catch a deer in enough light to adequately record its image on film, not as easy a task to accomplish as some might believe.  Think about it for a moment: when and where do you most often see whitetails?  Isn't it usually along the edges of fields, sometimes still in the shade of the woods that they use as cover, if not in the woods themselves?  And isn't it more often early in the morning or late in the day, when the sun angle is the lowest and its intensity the least?

     The good news for the camera hunter is that whitetails don't present much of an exposure setting challenge.  Or do they?  Let's look at this most important aspect of camera hunting for a moment.  Setting your camera for the right exposure is most important because if you don't have the right exposure, you might as well go home.  It's sort of akin to firing a rifle at a deer without taking aim.  Fortunately, whitetails reflect exactly an average amount of light and will therefore record on film quite well if your camera is set to record an average scene for the amount of light available where the deer is when you take its picture.

     The problem comes when the background for your photograph is a lot darker, say that spruce fir forest that your deer is hanging along the edge of.  The answer is to meter something of average reflectance in the same light as the deer.  Or better yet, if you've got a camera with a spot meter and are close enough to the deer to fill the spot with it, set your exposure accordingly and you'll make a properly exposed image of your deer.

     Many of the wildlife photographs of deer with big racks that you see are made in places where the deer aren't shot at.  That's partly because the professional wildlife photographers who make those images don't have enough time to scour the woods for the years it might take to bag a big buck on film and still put bread on the table.

     It's also because trophy animals - be they deer, elk, moose or some other species - just don't come along as often at places where a species is hunted.  Anyone who doubts that should take a trip to Yellowstone National Park just to see of the racks on the elk out there compared to the ones you might get lucky enough to see outside the park where hunting is permitted.

     One of the best things about camera hunting is that you never have a closed season.  The only seasonal imperatives are the biological clock of the species that you pursue and the weather, which can impact on how, when and where you'll find your chosen species.  But during the Maine firearms seasons on whitetails, it pays to exercise the same common sense precautions required of licensed hunters in the woods.  If you choose to camera hunt in or near areas where firearms hunting is permitted, it only makes sense to wear blaze orange.  And remember that a two week black powder season follows the regular firearms hunt.  While no true sportsman would fire on a target he wasn't sure of, mistakes can happen.  That's why the law requires hunters to wear two items of blaze orange during the firearms deer season.  One item must be a hat.  The other must cover a major portion of the torso.  Just because you don't need a license to camera hunt doesn't mean that you should be careless about safety: anyone hiking in hunting areas should wear blaze orange.

     It's a fact that whitetails are harder to photograph in Maine once the guns start going off in the woods early in the fall.  Your problems of getting close to one are compounded, especially depending upon where you go after them with a camera.  Even Maine whitetails that hang out at areas where hunting is not permitted can sometimes act spooky by November.  Because of that, whitetails present an extra special challenge for the camera hunter in Maine, a challenge that can be more difficult than filling a tag with a rifle.  But what is nice is that a camera hunter can shoot as many deer as he wants, and every day!

 Catch yours in the good light.