Wild Life at Home: How to Study and Photograph It
It frequently happens, however, when trying to photograph flying birds, such as gannets, that they
are far too quickly in and out of the field of vision its manipu-commanded by the duplicate to allow lator to make any attempt at focussing. In such cases the only thing possible is to watch the birds fly across the plate of ground glass, and directly one appears fairly well in focus to snap off and thus secure a picture before the object has passed out of view. Although the miniature camera is a very useful accessory it is not absolutely necessary, and I should not recommend the beginner to go to the ex- OUH CAMEKA. pense of providing himself with one until he has had a good deal of experience. The most useful [thing about a natural-history camera is a silent shutter. One of the most acute senses in all wild animals is undoubtedly
that of hearing, and the man who can work with the least noise will, as a rule, get the best results. Our silent shutter is permanently fixed between the lens and the body of the camera. It is one of Thornton and Pickard's, and works very satisfactorily, although I have occasionally known even its slight grating sound when opened make a brooa-ing bird cock her head on one side in the attitude of listening, and, of course, spoil the plate.
Many animals are so full of vitality and movement that they are never still long enough in any attitude for the photographer's brain to communicate with his hand, arid his hand with the air-ball controlling the silent shutter, and yet leave a sufficient margin of time in which to expose a plate upon them. For such subjects we use a focal-plane shutter, which is fixed at the back of the camera, and works at from one-twentieth to a thousandth part of a second. Where the camera needs to be carefully hidden as in the case of photographing wild rabbits outside their burrows, or water-voles on a river's bank, and worked from a distance with the operator as little exposed as possible we employ a hundred feet of gutta-percha tubing, about a quarter of an inch in outside diameter, and joined in five or six places by hollow pieces of metal. The value of these is that they enable the photographer to use any length of tubing demanded by circumstances, and it must be borne in mind that
the shorter the tubing the quicker and more certain the exposure. It is better to carry half a dozen dark slides already charged with plates than to risk re-charging two or three in a changing bag, unless the photographer has a friend who will accompany him upon his expeditions and assist in the somewhat tedious operation. Even then it is necessary to use the greatest care, as a very tiny ray of light will fog a rapid plate and utterly ruin the picture of a lifetime.
When away on our summer holidays, which we generally take in remote parts of the country, we carry our developing materials with us, and prefer papier-mache trays to porcelain ones, as they are much lighter to take about and less likely to suffer damage at the hands of railway porters. A green-baize focussing cloth, slightly larger than the red-and-black ones supplied by dealers in photographic outfits, is a very necessary article for use in natural-history work, especially where the camera has to be hidden and the plate exposed from a distance by the aid of the long pneumatic tube. We have a cloth of this description constantly in use, and have loaded each of its four corners with a charge of shot, so as to prevent them from flapping about in a breeze. A few safety-pins will be found very useful for fastening the cloth over the camera.
Some of the chief things to be remembered when out in the fields are, so far as apparatus is concerned, to have the lens perfectly clean; no
sand or grit in the dark slides, and never to expose them to the light more than is absolutely necessary; to expose plates always in the same order, beginning at number one, and working upwards. This will prevent the aggravating blunder of taking two pictures on the same plate. It is a very useful thing to carry a note-book, and jot down in it the numbers of the plates exposed, and the subjects. An annoying oversight, which even experienced photographers sometimes commit during moments of great excitement caused by some rare opportunity suddenly presenting itself, is to omit to draw out the shutter of their dark slide, and thus expose a bit of polished mahogany instead of a sensitised plate to the subject whose image they wish to perpetuate.
The securing of a good sharp focus is an extremely important thing; and if it is impossible to get a friend to hold the back of his hand exactly where, for example, a bird is expected to come to feed her young in the nest, an old envelope that has been through the post will do just as well. We are often asked by correspondents what sort of plates we use. We have done a great deal of good work with the Ilford Chromatic, which were until recently known as Isochromatic, for still objects full of colour, such as flowers, birds' eggs, and insects at rest; Imperial Special Rapid for quick-time exposures; and Flashlight for very fast
focal-plane shutter-work and night-photography, when we are either burning magnesium-ribbon or using our small metal flash-lamp as illurninants.
It may be well to mention here one or two of the faults to which the ordinary amateur photographer is prone. He does not spend sufficient time and pains in developing a plate which has had a very rapid exposure, and consequently requires building-up with care and patience, cuts short its stay in the fixing-solution, and hurries it through the washing-tub. It is well to remember that the results obtained from the best camera in the world and the most skilful field-work may be utterly ruined and defeated by carelessness in the developing-room. The telephoto lens introduced a few years ago is a good apparatus enough for portraying stationary objects with at a distance as, for instance, a raven's nest in the face of a cliff, when it is possible to get on a level with it. But this lens is not so suitable for most birds, because they are of such a restless disposition that it is impossible to give a sufficiently long exposure. An amusing thing happened to my brother last spring whilst trying to make a study of two or three rooks' nests with a telephoto lens and its attenuated camera. The nests were the beginnings of a new colony in a few elm trees growing alongside a brick-field; and when one of the labourers, who evidently took a good deal of interest in the birds
and their welfare, saw the curious-looking camera being focussed, he thought it was some new kind of machine-gun being sighted, and ran over to my brother and said: " For God's sake, don't shoot the poor birds, Mister We likes to see 'em a-tryin' to breed
"ere." Photographing birds on their natural roosts in field-hedges in the winter time, spiders weaving their webs and moths on the feed during summer nights, is an extremely diverting pastime, to say nothing of the valuable pictures to be secured. The only accessories required to indulge in it are a good bull's-eye lantern by the light of which to focus, and a flash-lamp to procure an exposure. We have found a little metal French flash-lamp very convenient. The magnesium powder is put in beneath, and when charged and ready for use, a few drops of methylated spirits are poured into the indented part round the two projecting orifices at the top, and lighted. It is necessary to see that these two orifices are perfectly clear, so as to allow a good strong geyser-like rush of powder through each, and that the spirits when lighted by a match make a flame large enough to fire it. There is nothing so annoying as an ineffectual flash, because in the case of birds it sometimes frightens them away. The powder should be burnt just over the lens, but in no case in front of it, or disappointment will follow. We sometimes use
magnesium-ribbon, but it is not nearly so satisfactory as the flash-lamp, and upon one occasion, at least, a piece fell off on to the bellows of the camera, and burnt a large hole clean through it before we could say "Jack Robinson."
A pair of good field glasses are most essential for watching shy birds and beasts to their haunts, and in selecting them it is desirable to go to makers of repute and choose a pair that are not too heavy, else they may become burdensome during a long day's tramp. If manufacturers of binoculars would reserve a small compartment in their leather cases for a note-book, pencil, and bit of wash-leather or selvyt, they would do field naturalists a real service.
We now come to the consideration of one of the most important features connected with the photography of shy wild animals in their native haunts viz. the effectual concealment of the camera and its operator. In hiding up it is necessary to be able to see the field covered by the camera, and at the same time avoid being seen by the creature one desires to photograph. Silence and stillness are also absolutely imperative, but their rewards are great and assured. In the case of timid or cunning birds, of which we desired to make studies on or near their nests, we used to build a bower close by and huddle the camera and its owner inside; but the gradual drooping of leaves, or the unbending of boughs, invariably showed some portion of one or both, and
io WILD LIFE AT HOME.
postponed the arrival of the feathered " sitter." I accordingly set myself to work upon the task of thinking out how to make something that would effectually do away with this sort of temporary contrivance, and be at the same time more effective. An imitation tree-trunk of sufficient internal capacity to accommodate my brother and his camera, as shown in the picture on page 12, appeared to be the best appliance for use in woods and by hedgerows, and I determined to build one. Purchasing three pieces of stout bamboo, each seven feet in length, I split them down the centre and lashed them to three small wooden hoops, the topmost and centre ones being twenty-four inches in diameter and the bottom one twenty-seven, so as to represent the base of a tree, and give the legs of our tripod a greater stride. I now found that the green American cloth which I had purchased to cover niy skeleton trunk, and when painted to represent its bark, assumed the shape and appearance of a hexagonal column between the hoops. This would not do at all, so I paid a visit to our village ironmonger's shop and bought a sufficient number of yards of galvanised wire of the largest mesh to cover the whole wooden skeleton, and when the covering of cloth was put on over this the effect was much more trunk-like.
Another difficulty now presented itself. We could not carry such a structure along roads and over hedges and ditches for miles without having
it rolled up. So I took the hoops out, and fastening the galvanised wire together I formed it into an oblong sheet, threaded each of the pieces of bamboo through its meshes, like slats, covered the whole with the American cloth, and drawing the two edges together with strings tied the hoops in their respective positions inside. The top was arranged broken-column fashion, to represent a storm-snapped trunk; and in painting that portion of it I took care to make it look as if innumerable