Upland Hunting
- This topic has 25 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated Aug 23, 2008 at 11:00 am by
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With fall and various hunting seasons just around the corner, I’ve been “networking” a bit, trying to make some contacts and find some hunters that will let me tag along for various types of hunting.
This past Friday I made my way to a game farm tat offers Chukars and Ring Necked Pheasants. As well its a center for Training and Field Trials. The owner has graciously allowed me out and will help with getting me out with some groups including some “European shoots.
Ive already booked their Fields Trials competition in mid Sept.Anyways, Friday was a chance for a face to face, see the layout, some training, and for me to get a sense of what lenses will work, what conditions may be like etc…a dry run if you will.
Heres a few.
Training starts early
What is it with licking their chops
Cooling off? No just more training
Mild warning. Some may not want to scroll further
Mild crops
Few more dog shots here…Hopefully lots more to come starting Sept/Oct
http://jben.zenfolio.com/p708096785Nice job John! I hope to be shooting (with the Nikon) opening day of dove season in a couple of weeks. I’d be interested in any tips.
What lens did you shoot with the most? I’m thinking 70-200mm or something similar.
John, I am wondering how many bird shot pings are in the green house. Has anybody looked? 🙂
Nice german wired-hair.
Drfiter
Most of the time I had the 24-70 on. I think if pushed thats all thats needed. The dogs tend to work 50 to 75 feet out and at the long end you can get them and depending on angles include the hunter. When up close an at the short end, you get nice views as well. The first two shots of a Chukar above were taken with it.I played with the 400 for some in flightshots of the chukars (the last shot above) but the birds tend to “escape” towards 10 and 2 oclock and that mean “ass” shots, which for wildlife isolation shots dont work.
Given my druthers Id like to use a 24-70 and 70-200 type lens. A wide agle zoom would still be the workhorse.As for tips..not sure Im still trying to figure out what o look for myself other than Dogs on point and Birds exploding up out of the brush (exploding in air is cool but I dont know about sellable) :).
Te hardest thing is you have little to no control over the direction of light. The dogs work upwind and the birds fly “away”. You can move to much of an oblique as Im sure you dont want to lose your head accidentally. So I stayed about 5 to 10 feet behind the shooterat all times and tried to shoot around the shooter and the trainer.
Lol Scott 🙂
I wondered abit about that myself but really, the edge of the field is still a good 150 to 200 feet away (hedge row). The owners house is another 100 feet beyon that. Its a bit of an illusion due to the compression of the 400mm. At that point we were at the far north of of his property. I forget how many acres he has but its huge. Most activlity is in 1 to 7 fields all but te near one a longways away. The near one he uses for training.Agree 100% Zach.
It’s way cool in so much as you never see stop action like that with the naked eye or even with video, but I’d be really surprised, if a major mag would ever run shots of that nature. Like you said, I think it crosses the line for publications. Dunno for sure as on the “pro” side more and more were seeing hunting shows/vids capturing and displaying the full sequence.. Primos “the truth” series come to mind and some Bow hunting shows also show the release through to completetion…but in the end theres still a fine line I think between paid for programming and print media.
I “think” a better shot of a bird taking to wing, the hunter raising the gun and tracking can sell though as in the first frame. Feathers popping off or floating in the wind a just that weee bit risque. “Better” meaning fall colours on the ground and BG, shooters in field gear as opposed to summer khakis etc:). The “comp” as it were is in my inexperienced eye about perfect.
And then close ups of various species “in flight” can work to but are realyl tough given you only have a second or two to acquire focus and hope they aren’t “butt” shots but side ons.
Still a earning curve for me. Anyone else want to chime in by all means do so…even different things to look for ( acroutrements, spent shells, nice wood work on stocks etc).
Thanks Zach.
J
Really like the first shot and the last shot is just awesome. Mind sharing the exif data?
There was a picture I remember from the Olympics montage of a spent shotgun shell being ejected and it had some blue smoke still coming out of the spent end. It was one of those images of nothing of real importance but it still held your attention somehow.
Kevin. I’ll check with the owner/operator about his take on the distinction when next I see him.
Mike:
1st shot
Manual, partial metering ISO 100 at 1/2500th no bias @ f3.2. Technically it could stand some fill (which I was doing), but for some reason I preferred the non flashed frame.Last shot.
My mistake earlier, I thought it was one of the 400mm shots, it wasnt its at 70mm. Sometimes forget which were which when mixing up lenses 🙂Clouds were moving in, sunlight was intermittant.
AV, partial Metering, ISO 200 @ 1/6500, no bias @ f4.0.
Its cropped about 40%..That much I remember 🙂If you are up for a southern journey. I can hook you into some good contacts for the NSTRA circuit. The Quail Forever Trial is a week long trial with a great setting – the 2nd week of January. If anyone is interested in taking some photos at this, Let me know and I’ll take you. (I happened to
Impressive once again.
I would imagine some guys would actually welcome the extra body…help kick some stuff up.
I can’t recall ever having seen a shot like the last one printed and it would be interesting to find out whether a magazine would print it. I certainly think it is of publishable quality – it’s just the subject matter I’m curious about.
I think the last shot is a great capture of the bird being knocked out of the sky but suffers, more than anything else,
Hey John, check this out: http://www.outdoorlife.com/indexhome.jsp.
Different anyways, Id rather not comment/compare.
A “Eurpoean shoot” is quite different, its bascially a shooting gallery for hunters (and photogs) stationed around.as for whether or not anyone would publish an image like mine I guess theres only one way to find out. When the seasons open and I get some with fall colours in a hunt setting, after getting a bunch of bread nd butter shots, I’ll slap the 400 on and nail some good “kill” shots 🙂 Send a couple here and there and see what happens…Whats the worst that can happen, they join a pile of other rejects 🙂
Kills me the difference in the numbers of publications between south and North of the border. Up here theres only a handful of fish/hunting mags…You guys have soooooooooo many…I wouldnt know where to begin other than Field and Stream. 🙂
Great pictures, really love those floppy eared pups.http://www.uplandjournal.com/ is a great site for those kind of pics and they even have a fly fishing section, very similar to IA over there everyone uses real names.
The Retriever Journal is another greatAaron, did you check out the ah ah reel! in that spadefish photo.
Mark you crack me up, I spit coffee all over my desk when I saw that. Too funny.
thanks for the laugh,
aGreat shots john, i wish i had the skill to be able to catch birds in flight like that. The last 2 are classic (at least if you’ve done alot bird hunting), i can hear the guide or whoever saying “do you think you can let them get out a little bit further?”
I did shot some pheasant hunting 2 years ago when we were out in south dakota. We were hunting wild birds, so it made it alot harder to get bird in flight shots, but that was my goal. As for advice, I would put the 400 on, and get out in front of the hunters, i think it creates a much more dynamic image when you can see the bird, dog, and the front of the hunter instead of the back. As long as you can reasonably trust the hunters to not take low shots, or let the birds get out to the side a bit, you should be in no real danger.
Also maybe thing about taking along a 6′ step ladder or something. I got on top of a pile of dirt to get up above the grass and it worked great.
http://lucidarc.com/Photoblog/index.php?showimage=114
http://lucidarc.com/Photoblog/index.php?showimage=115
http://lucidarc.com/Photoblog/index.php?showimage=97
http://lucidarc.com/Photoblog/index.php?showimage=100
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