A couple from the weekend

[Wulff 0]

I have a couple assignments coming up ( 1 starts tonight with a 4 to 5 drive lol, but thats another story) but the other is covering a Turkey Hunt.

 

Turkey hunting is a tricky thing, where silence and lack of movement is critical. To boot I need to meet the hunter/writer at 4am on the day of the actual hunt. The editor is hoping I can get some pre dawn shots of

 

a. the hunter gearing up by moonlight, car headlight

b. the hunter setting up decoys in the pre dawn light

c. the hunter making some initial calls, in pre dawn light

 

 

Then its dead silence and hiding in the 2nd blind for me while the hunter does his thing. Because Turkeys have acute hearing I likely won't be risking any shots of the Turkeys themselves as the risk of getting busted by the sound of the shutter tripping is too great.

 

Anyways, having neven done this before I went out with another Hunter on Sunday. He wanted to scout his area prior to this Fridays season openers and I to get a taste of what to expect.

 

So there I was on the road at 3:30 am, we were on location at 5am.

 

Exeriment #1.

Shoting a hunter gearing up in the dark at 5:30am

 

Thats a full moon in the BG. Because I had to expose for the very dim light cast by the trunks interior light the moons blown. Also due to the lack of contrast I had to manually focus. As good as my bodies AF systemy is, there are limits. Lesson learned. Trying to get both some detail of the hunter and a moon in the BG is impossible. If I expose for the moons light, the hunter wont be anything but a silohette. If I expose by whatever little light is illuminating the hunter, I'll blow the moon in the BG.

 

ISO 640, f1.8, 2.5 second exposure

 

be honest, tell me what you think.

 

Interesting shot.

After a couple hours calling the Toms it was time to pack it in. The hunter started walking along the hedgerow where I was located. Because I had set up in the dark myself and despite not having a blind but instead was simply in full camo, he had trouble locating me even though he knew the general area. Its me hes looking for

 

All in all the outing gave me really some good insight into what to expect and how to get some of the shots the editors hoping for.

 

Another advantage of getting out before the suns up. I was able to get some nice WT shots. A small herd of 8 had no clue I was there and while it took quite a bit of time, they eentually got within 30 feet of me.

[Vito1 0]

Well done, Wulff. I look forward to see more of this assignment.

[Ashby 0]

All three look pretty good, the low light photo (probably a lower quality downloaded to the site here) looks (to me) a little distorted on the guys face. The rest of the shots are great, love the glass eye candy in photo two.

 

Ashby

[Will Milne 0]

John-

 

The first pic is superb, it conveys that feeling of getting going after that coffee stop, anticipation !!! hopes for the day!! Could it have been better? Methinks your too hard on yourself:)))

 

It's a great opener image!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Would I have done things different- well nope I was'nt there.!!!

 

From the comfort of my puter- maybe some fill to open up his back.

 

Maybe a low angle up shot with the moon blocked by his body to create a glow around him.

 

Maybe a soft transition Graduated ND filter to hold back the moon.

 

Problem is seeing/thinking of these things when it's happenning.

 

 

I'll toss this out , because I have great respect for your skills and also because I know it is a trap that I fall into ALLLLLLL the time.

 

It seems that a lot of the pics are very straight on/upright/eye level/frame contained/ tight....

 

hope that makes sense.

 

I get that critisism over and over and over and I know it's an issue. Those types of tight images are great but they dont add/lend tension to a image secquence. Tossing things off axis or from high/low angles coupled with the kind of technical skills you bring can bring a lot of narrative nuance to the image essay.

 

 

I,m so often so concerned about getting it right , and staying safe , that I end up with a lot of "correct "images that dont always express the event very well. I hope this makes sense:))))

 

I think its seriously cool you have an assignment upcoming and I also think its a testement to your pro approach that you would actually go out and practise beforehand .... I dont doubt it will look great.

 

 

Will

[Wulff 0]

Thanks guys.

Its an odd one, with some problems to overcome. Namely shooting in dark, flash cant be used ( nightvision or jut plain old spooking the wildlife/birds) and Im actually hoping for a light drizzle to boot. Hence trying to figure out some ways to get close to what were hoping for.

 

Ashby the reason his face looks a bit distorted is because the shots taken with an 85mm at F1.8. So the effective DoF at that distance/focal range is suffice to say tight..probably around 2 inches..and its manually focused in the near pitch black. Gettin him in focus at all as a bit of miracle. The other hurdle is the exposure time, even at ISO 640 and F1.8 the shutter was still open for 2.5 seconds. At that DoF/exposure time if he even blinks the image will be blurred (motion blur).

 

But Im glad it did once as now I have some ideas on how to overcome it. For example if is forecast to be a bright moon I may bring a silver reflector along o bounce some light bck onto the subject/scene

 

Will no problem, Im constanly thinking about ways to change/improve/differentiate comps. Its why I asked people to be honest. If everyone always says...Nice image... you dont learn how you might shoot it differenly next time

[Ashby 0]

Thanks for further info John. I can imagine how that would be hard to do with so little light. I didn't take the DOF into consideration. I was thinking though, for the focus deal, you could have the subject hold a small dim light for the focus, then out for the shot. Or put a lighter in the bed of the truck for light on the face. I don't know if you would be able to do that, but just some ideas. I hope we get to see some of the photos from this shoot, should be pretty awesome.

 

Ashby

[Wulff 0]

Thanks Ashby.

I'm going to try to devise a couple ways to shed some light and yet keep it practical.

 

No matter what idea's I come up with, I have to able to set up quickly. While I haven't spoken to the hunter about this aspect of the day yet (getting some pre dawn shots) one tihng Im pretty certain about. He's not going to be overly patient for me and I cant waste 20 minutes, setting myself up, then asking him to pose, then doing some retakes.

 

Addition light added to the trunk might be the ticket. I have a pretty powerful flashlight with an adjustable head I could position in his trunk, slap a disfuserr over the head or bounce it back out and that might just be the ticket I need.

 

While the photo above doesnt show it, its actaully quite a bit darker than what the photo conveys. The only reason his face is illuminated at all is because the shutter was open for 2.5s at f1.8. That gathers alot of light and makes it appear brighter than it actually is. You can "see" that by the blown moon...ever seen a moon look like that? It looks more like a sun.

 

 

the other option I thought of was to use my cars headlights but I suspect he wont want the headlights lighting up the immediate area for fear of spooking anything.

 

me thinks its time to experiment again the flashlight and bounce might just about perfect

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ashby 0]

Sounds like you have a really good plan. In any case, good luck on the photo shoot and let us know how it goes. I did some experiments with a flash light the other night. Pointed the away from me, behind the camera, and set the camera at 1.8F and 3 sec shutter. It turned out pretty good, so you may be on to a good idea there. Good luck.

 

Ashby