By Arkansas Outdoors Online Contributing Writer: Todd Whetstine of Wild Woods PhotographyWell it's that time of year again: deer season.
Are you ready? Do you have your gun sighted in? Camo washed in no-scent detergent? I bet so!
But what about your camera? Do you have it sighted in? Right aperture? Correct shutter speed? How about ISO? If you make it a habit of taking your camera into the woods with you while hunting, as many hunters do, it’s just as important to prepare your camera for the woods as it is your gun, camo, or other field gear.
Why? Because one of the most frustrating aspects of taking pictures in the field is getting those special hunting or fishing pictures back too dark, too light or too blurry — special moments of your grandsons or daughters first buck that you can’t get back … gone forever.
Here are a few tips that I hope will help you be able to pull that camera out of the bag in the heat of the moment and preserve these memories for everyone not only to see, but to feel and relive.
Timing is everything! You can't be reading the owner’s manual while in the field. This is the time to be ready to capture the tears, the grinin, the closeness and the pride, not the time to be looking for the power button on the camera. If you’re ill-prepared, the moment will be gone, and you’ll be too late. Part of the problem for hunters is the time of day. Most wildlife action comes during very low light conditions. Having your camera sighted in ahead of time is crucial.
Lets start with ISO. ISO is a number that tells you how sensitive to the light your sensor (on a digital camera), or your film is. 1600 ISO will allow you to take pictures in very low light. Conversely, 100 ISO will help you when it is bright. The catch is that at 1600 ISO, your picture will be a lot grainier, and at 100 ISO it will be blurrier.
Shutter speed adjusts the blur. The higher the speed, the crisper the picture. Knowing which shutter speed is needed for each particular situation will come as a general rule. If the shot is handheld, I like to shoot with a shutter speed of twice the focal length. That simply means if I'm using a 50mm lens I want a shutter speed 1/100 of a second. With a 200mm lens, the shutter speed would be 1/400 of a second, and so on.
Aperture is the size of the opening on the shutter. Aperture will tell how much of the picture will be in focus. If you’re shooting a crowd sitting in the bleachers at f-22, everyone in the photo will be fairly sharp. However, at f-4, just a couple of people will be recognizable, and the background will be blurred. This draws your eye to a specific subject in a photo, instead of the photo as a whole. F-22 is a small opening, lets very little light in, so it will take a slower shutter speed than f-4, or your photos will be too dark. A big opening, such as f4, will let a lot more light in, so you can shoot a faster shutter speed.
To sum it up, if my son is on the ground with his first buck, and I'm shooting a 50mm lens, I want at least 1/100 of a second shutter speed for the most crisp photo. Now, I adjust my ISO as low as I can get away with. This is all determined through the light meter in the view finder.
I hope these photography tips help you the next time you hit the woods !
Voted as the PSNWA 2008 Photographer of the Year, Todd Whetstine is a wildlife and landscape photographer in NWA who spends his time searching the region’s woods and waters for the perfect shot. To read more about Todd and to see some of his photography, visit his website at :
http://www.wildwoodsphotography.com.
