Shooting Better Photos

Want to take better photos of your fish? Who better than D’Arcy Egan can get you on your way? The following article was in the Plain Dealer on December 30, 2006, good stuff for you to try. Remember to shoot and shoot more often and members don’t be afraid to email a few pictures to the OCBS webmaster once in awhile.  

Time to learn how to shoot . . . cameras

Saturday, December 30, 2006

D'Arcy Egan

Plain Dealer Columnist

On Christmas morning, the little digital camera you've been wanting was under the tree. Being a fisherman or a hunter, you can't wait to take photos of your trophies and share them with friends.

You could e-mail photos to Web sites, such as steelheadsite.com or walleyecentral.com. Or maybe send the photo of Junior's first deer to the Ohio Division of Wildlife (ohiodnr.com/wildlife) for its trophy deer page.

The first thing a new photographer must do is learn to operate the camera. Read the manual. Learn how to take photos using settings other than automatic. Know how to make the switch to high-resolution photographs and operate the flash when the camera says it really isn't necessary.

After that, it's practice time.

The best feature of a digital camera is the "erase" factor. Take a photo, learn from it and erase it.

When you purchase a camera, you're almost ready to head outdoors, but not quite. The little memory card the manufacturer included with the camera usually is small in size and won't store a large number of photographs, especially the high-resolution kind.

The first purchase is a memory card with at least 512 megabytes of storage, although 1 gigabyte is even better. Also purchase a second battery. Batteries seem to fail when the biggest fish of the day is hooked or a major-league buck or long-bearded gobbler is harvested.

If you fish and hunt, your new little camera is in peril in the great outdoors. The affordable ones have a plastic body and fragile parts. Drop it or dunk it and you'll have to discard it. It will be too expensive to fix.

Buy a camera case - waterproof is best. Protection doesn't have to be expensive. Tuck the camera into a sealable plastic bag and then a wool sock if you're going to carry it in a fishing vest or the pocket of a hunting coat.

Dust and dirt are bad for cameras. Keep the lens clean with a special lint-free cloth, not the cleanest portion of your shirt - though we all sometimes wipe away a spot of grime with the tag end of a T-shirt.

Now you're ready for action.

Sportsmen should scan photographs appearing in quality outdoor publications to understand the images the editors know their readers want to see. You'll quickly note that bare-chested sportsmen won't make the cut, or the exceptionally scruffy types. Neither will anglers smoking cigarettes or cigars, or holding an adult beverage.

You won't be the star, since you're holding the camera. But your buddies will always remember you took the photograph when they caught that 11-pound walleye, 5-pound bass or tagged the big white-tailed deer.

Tips for the taking

Many photographs are sent this way, and at least half never make the grade. Here are helpful hints for success:

Always take a photo with the highest resolution possible with your camera. It makes for a crisp, clear enlargement suitable for the wall.

Make sure the sun is behind you and lighting your subject. The best photos are taken early or late in the day.

Have the subjects remove their hats, if possible. If not, even in bright daylight, move in close and use the camera's flash to eliminate shadows under the brim of the hat.

Get closer. Then get closer again and fill the frame with the angler or hunter and their prizes. When you include too much scenery and want to radically crop the photo later, enlargements will be of poor quality.

If you want to include some of the scenery, have your subject off to one side.

Check out the background. It is often distracting.

Press your camera firmly against your cheek when taking a photograph to limit camera shake. Lots of photos that seem out of focus are actually suffering from an unsteady photographer.

One photograph isn't enough. When you check the images back at home, you'll find too many photographs with the subject out of focus, poorly framed or with their eyes closed.

Don't let anglers hold their fish at arm's length from their body. It will make the fish look larger but will also make the angler appear to have mutant thumbs and fingers. Everyone knows that trick, so scrap it

Smile, darn you. Tell a joke or insist the subject smile. It makes for a much better photograph.

Take candid photographs, and plenty of them. Take photos of anglers while they're fishing, or releasing a big steelhead trout. Press the shutter button to capture a hunter carrying a big gobbler from the turkey woods or waterfowl hunters in the duck blind. It's hard to find anything more photogenic than a golden retriever in the duck blind or an English setter in the bird field.

Know how to adjust your camera for action photographs.

Don't smoke while taking photographs, unless you want that wispy blue stuff in the image.

Share your best photographs. Digital photographs are easy to e-mail. After a fishing or hunting trip, send your outdoor buddies photographs of the adventure. If they're in the images, they'll be thrilled.

Learn from your mistakes. Some people just can't seem to stop cutting off the heads of subjects, or taking photographs from so far away that the subject could be Aunt Emma, Grandpa Jones or your little brother, Bobby.

Taking photographs should be fun. Know your equipment so that your friends can get back to fishing and not wait for you to figure out why your camera isn't working properly.

- D'Arcy Egan

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

degan@plaind.com, 216-999-5158