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Stalking the shot?
vintagemxr
Registered Users Posts: 224 Major grins
You guys that are getting the great shots: Beyond the obvious expert camera usage I'm wondering if you're using some particular stealth technique to get closer to the wild life or just sitting quietly and waiting until the critters get used to your presence. Camo clothes? Portable blind? Secretly shooting at the zoo and not telling us? Just kidding on that last one. 
Doug
Doug
"A photograph is usually looked at – seldom looked into." - Ansel Adams
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Some just use really long expensive glass.......I don't have really long glass, 70-210mm f2.8, is my longest......I have said in other threads I am a bow hunter and put those skills of stealth to work for me......I wash my clothes in a no perfume anti allergic soap usually purex (white bottle) and rinse with at least a cup of baking soda and hang dry away from anything that could add a human odor to it, or I dry in dryer with a dryer sheet labeled as earth scent (Hunter specialities brand).....yes it smells just like dirt.......
I also wash with a no scent Hunter Specialities soap.....and rinse with baking soda....alowing to just air dry so the baking soda is still on skin and is my deoderant and anti-persparant..........this is the cheapest way I have found to get up close and personal with the wildlife...such as whitetailed deer and such...........then comes patience......I also use calls to get their attenetion.....but I try to know the breeding season (RUT) and the fawing (calving) times for the area I am going to shoot in......I do not always wear camo.......I have proven many times that one only needs to use soap that is phosphate free and the wild will not notice you as much.....they can see the glow of the phosphates better than we can (with out using a black light)........I do not wear bright solid colors out into the wild but rather patterned earth tones or natural colors for where I will be...........for birds it is a matter of usually just sitting quietly where they feed and water and with birds I cheat....I carry bird feed to spread on the ground and hope it doesn't attract the crows and black birds...........
I use a 300mm lens with or without a 1.4 tc. I approach birds very slowly, usually at an angle, not directly towards them. I watch the birds carefully; if they show any signs of agitation, I stop and look away. I make no sudden movements. If you stay still, many birds will get used to you. It takes patience.
I have only tried a portable blind once. It freaked the cattle egrets I was trying to photograph. They let me get closer when I was wearing blue jeans and a blue t-shirt.
This will really help you. Knowing where and when to set up helps no matter what your lens. Patience is the hardest to master.
Keep in mind that getting close has its hazards. Always allow an out for wild animals (and yourself). Keep both eyes open. Hooves are sharp same as claws. And always remember that the cute young have very observant mothers who decide on their own what is too close.
There really is something special being up close and personal with wild animals.
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I'm not a photographer, the wife is, but I can give you some advice and tactics that I've acquired over the last 30 years of being a successful hunting and fishing guide in the west.
The above quote from CS shouldn't be ignored. The most important thing to remember is KNOW THE BEAST. If you're out shooting predators, prey species, birds or whatever else, study up on its biology and habits. If you have a good grasp on its normal daily activities, you'll stand a much better chance of success than the other putz who hasn't a clue. Be able to differentiate between a squirrel drey and a hawk platform/nest...etc. The wilds aren't a drive-thru, critters won't magically appear at a window asking what pose you'd like, patience is a virtue when it comes to wildlife. If you've studied its habits and know its biology, bet you a beer you'll find success.
Clothing....You don't have to spend a great deal of money setting yourself up with camo and that kind of thing. The most important thing is to break up your silhouette. A lot of people argue about the ranges of colors animals can see and distinguish but I've found that just using earthy tones and breaking up my human form works the best. The whole scent-lock, digitized, this and that pattern of clothing is just a manufactured line of thinking dreamed up by those doing the advertising in my opinion. It's the "buy me and be successful" schtick that everyone has to deal with; photographers, hunters, fisherman and everyone else inbetween. I wear Carharts and Levis.
Here's what I carry with me while hunting or stalking.
1. Cheapest camo you can buy....rubber bands or some adjustable straps..
huh?
Use them to attach foilage to your mug and equipment. What better camo to break up your pattern if necessary than the flora around you? It's like a homemade ghillie suit. Just don't go tearing up the countryside so you can look like a whookie.
Movement....If you want to lose the shot....move. Movement is the main reason hunters and the like go home empty handed. If you master patience and movement, you'll be successful. If you HAVE to move, sloooooow deliberate movement is the key.
Noise...uhh, like, shaddup. Sound carries...I'd rather be doused in my wifes foo foo shampoo than have someone yapping on a stand.
Scent...I really don't buy into all the masking that seems to be all the rage these days. It's a factor, but I think again, those responsible for advertising have taken into a whole new level. If I'm on a blind or stalking, I'll just roll around in the dirt for a second, wear a rare-earth scent wafer on my back, fire up a smoke and go at it....but mindful of the wind direction. I can't tell you how many times I've had prey species approach my blind that's been ringed with coyote urine (while hunting for coyote), the main predator in most areas of the west.
A lot of mammals, prey and predator alike are extremely inquisitive. I've sat on a number of coyote stands, smoking a Camel and farting....and have had Bobcats slide in next to me, giving me a wth look, nose poking the air. Until I moved, they were just interested in what the hell I was. Deer tend to be the most inquisitive of the lot.
Like some others have said, be mindful of the critters you're trying to capture on film...or pixels. I've seen photographers in the national parks switch from Joe SUV to Joe Idjit in a heartbeat. Throughout the years, a lot of people have attached Disneyesque beliefs to wild animals. They'll approach a brownie/black sporting cubs thinking they're safe...until that brownie shortens the distance THEY THOUGHT was safe within a few seconds...same thing with deer, moose, elk and coyotes.
Limit your footprint too. What I mean by that is, if you have to trailblaze to get somewhere that sports what you're looking for....do it in a respectful manner. If I have to cut a trail through thick brush or whatever, I'll oftentimes just find another route to limit my footprint. People get all testy when critters invade our living quarters or yards. They're just doing what comes natural, you on the other hand are able to make choices. Think before you go sloshing across wetlands, hacking through blowdowns etc. It's someones home.
If you're going to try and attract critters through the use of an electronic call or hand call, be mindful of where you're at. I probably wouldn't start blowing a bleating fawn call in the Southern California foothills unless I was armed...sucks being eaten by a cougar.
If none of that works...
Zoo
Good Luck!!!!!! Hope you get some great shots!
Bob
I did get to spend lots of quiet time in the desert and discovered that if you sit very still the seemingly empty desert does come to life after a bit.
I still have some my camo clothes so maybe if they have not shrunk too much from hanging in the closet for several years I'll at least put the hat and shirt to use. Certainly movement and scent are a big issue for closing in on most critters. I'm mostly interested in birds as subjects so as long as I don't sit so still for so long that the mountain lions and buzzards come for me I'll probably do ok.
Doug
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The trick is a patient and careful approach so that you are not perceived as a threat. You have to understand your subject's comfort zone and what will spook your subject. I've found that just sitting in a spot where you know there's activity works very well. You want to avoid sudden movements and loud noises.
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How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
was trying to think of how to word it and ya beat me to it.
We all go to Wildlife areas and the wildlife gets used to us. They still think were predators, they just
think were not HUNGRY !!
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I learned this one day when I saw a red shouldered hawk eating a frog while perched on a fence post.
I said "that's a cool image. I'm gonna sneak up on him and get a real tight shot".
So I laid down in the grass, cradled my D2X with the 500mm lens attached in my arms, and crawled closer to the hawk, sort of like doing the live fire training in basic. I stopped, snapped some shots, and crawled closer. Took some shots and crawled closer. As I took my next series of shots I realized that the hawk was staring at me and had been staring at me the whole time I had been crawling up to him. So I stood up and took some shots and the hawk stared at me. I walked up the edge of the stream between myself and the hawk on the fence post and took 50 shots.
I then stepped into the stream and the hawk took off. The hawk's comfort zone was the stream. As long as the stream was between the hawk and myself he did not perceive me as a threat. The moment I made a move to cross the stream he perceived me as a potential threat and flew away.
At no point during my ludicrous attempts to stalk up to him was he "fooled" He was aware of my presence the whole time.
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How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
“PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE ‘JAZZ’ FOR THE EYES…”
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Using your car can be good too. I have noticed birds like egrets, robins, hawks etc are not bothered by cars, but as soon as you get out, they fly off. This morning, I had several robins in my backyard. I actually got in my car and drove it to a spot in the backyard and observed and took a few shots while inside the car.
For hummingbirds, I would start out about 30 ft from the feeders and flowers. After a while, the limiting factor to how close I could get was the focus limit of the lens. It's not a matter of stalking, it's being observant and non-threatening.
Shoot in places where the target encounters lots of people so they're not as skittish. Doesn't work for all situations but I've lucked up this way several times.
I was camping with a group of Boy Scouts (mostly younger ones) and we had deer, turkeys, etc wandering around the campsite daily. Nobody used custom soap (young scouts seem to be allergic to the concept of soap while camping) or camo (though I will admit several of them probably coincidentally smelled like dirt...).
One of them was sleeping out under the stars and woke up with a raccoon on his chest.
They could hand-feed acorns to the deer (yes, we put a stop to it every time we saw it happening...gotta keep wildlife wild). The deer knew they were safe (despite the noise from a couple dozen scouts in the vicinity).
Yeah, no chance of doing that with hawks, falcons, etc. Though I did get a shot of a hummingbird at a nursery with my camera phone from less than three feet away (it knew where a juicy flower was and wasn't going to let nearby humans get in the way of free lunch).
I've gotten good close shots of deer in rural areas (again, places they encounter a fair number of people).
I'm NOT advocating putting out salt licks or otherwise trying to attract the critters. Just saying that one option is to shoot animals that aren't as skittish due to frequent exposure.
Heck, I saw a guy hand-feeding a wild skunk during the holiday break (Darwin works way too slowly some days). It had been injured crossing the road and apparently a bit of free easy food beat trying to forage while limping...
For truly wild areas, big lenses are handy (check the EXIF data on some of the shots posted around here...there's some serious lenses in use for some shots). If the photo you like is posted from a smugmug page, you can tweak the linked URL to get to the poster's gallery and find the photo info (I learn more from linked smugmug pics than those from other sites because of this).
Be ready to shoot quickly and shoot in bursts if it's an action shot you're after. I don't shoot wildlife very often (don't see enough of it) but I have learned that they don't tend to hang around while you chimp the shot, change lenses, try to compose it precisely, or otherwise waste their time. Shoot with whatever settings you have (and if the settings are all wrong...fix them before you blow the next opportunity...man I learned that one slowly).
You can often tweak the shot's composition by re-cropping during post so don't get too hung up (or spend too much time) trying to compose just perfectly (only to spook your target or lose it to any number of other causes).
Try to get to the spot before your target is expected to show up. If they feed at dusk, arrive earlier, bring a chair, a book, a GameBoy...you'll be part of the scenery when they arrive. I've looked down while fishing from a float tube and discovered I'd become "structure" (I was sitting in a small school of fish) since I'd been sitting pretty still for a while.
Practice with more cooperative critters. Work out lighting, stalking, focus, composition, etc before going after the spooky, rare, hard to find exotics. It's hurts less to botch shooting a bird you see every day than to badly underexpose the first falcon you've been able to shoot in two+ years (like I did during the holidays because I got excited and didn't reality check exposure comp after shooting evening, long exposure pics, the evening before....d'oh).
Anyway, they showed very clearly that how you appoached a big cat and how it could or would automatically affect how it responds. Approach directly at it while it's eating something...you've got trouble..you're threat to it's dinner. I can be like that myself when eating. Approach with eyes averted head down slightly, and the big cat simply ignored the person and kept eating a hunk of meat.
They also stressed the no one should try those techniques with dangerous animals themselves. Listening to the tiger crunch on an entire leg bone of beef seemed to be enough to make the idea of testing one's wild animal approach skills with an actual dangerous wild animal an uninteresting proposition. As an aside, I have a friend who has considerable experience with buffalo on a buffalo ranch. When she see photos of people at Yellowstone appoaching the big fellows there she just shakes her head and says "If they only knew how close to dead they are when they walk up to them like that..."
I've read things about approach techniques in dealing with unfamiliar dogs and how to appoach them and have used those sorts of techniques to sidle up to large lizards in the wild here in AZ. Move slow, indirectly, and it's amazing how close you can get to big lizards who are normally vary wary of predators. In the photo below I was about 3 feet away facing 90° to the lizard and then slowly rotated until he was in frame. He eyed me and then went back to munching lunch and tuned me out while I shot away. When I backed into a cactus and jumped he immediately skedaddled. :uhoh
Thus far my feeble attempts at approaching wild birds (except for humming birds at a feeder) have proven far less successful but I'll keep working on it and maybe get a longer lens or at least a Nikon teleconverter for the 300mm on the D90.
Doug
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