It's difficult to photograph a Buck antelope or couse buck. Something that I have found that works is to have the hunter wear a orange vest. Then position the camera so the vest is directly behind the horns/antlers. The hands should not be wrapped around the horns, but rather the horns should be held with the thumb and forefinger and the other fingers folded into a fist behind the horns. A color photo sure makes the horns/antlers stand out. Good luck.

I have found that big antlers make it easy to take a good picture.

This is a picture taken that shows even this is not fool proof.


This is a picture of a friend taken by his sister-in-law. Some other pictures were salvageable with some digital alterations.

I learned from the gun rags to stand on kneal about 20 feet behind the animal. They look more bigger that-a-way.

The picture that that Richard posts shows what your average hunter is up against trying to get a good trophy picture.

At dawn or dusk even when the background looks relatively bright, most auto cameras whether film or digital will produce photos like that. In this case you have the added problem of of the various reflective surfaces in the picture too..

At least with even a moderately priced SLR you have a fighting chance of producing a decent photo at dawn or dusk if you have a little knowledge and have invested some time practicing.

Basically, you set the camera to expose for the bakground and allow the flash to fill in the subject. Sounds easy, but it does take practice and expirience and depends whether you want to invest the time and trouble to develope this side of your "hunting" skills...as a guide or a PH, I would say it was a "must have"!

I am a novice myself and I really struggle with this particular set of circumsatnces, but I am making slow progress...

The other thing is to really take your your time; so many trophy pics are hurried snaps with no real thought other than getting the picture taken so the animal can be dealt with....the results are usually poor and very dissapointing....

Regards,

Pete

[ 08-04-2003, 12:38: Message edited by: Pete E ]

I think the excitement of the moment caused the person taking the picture to ignore all of the really bad negatives in the picture. The reflection off the child's shirt likely would have been missed by almost anyone. The red eye and green eye are not very visible on this small photo but was terrible on even the better pictures. My friends glasses had a substantial amount of reflection.

It took quite a while with Photoshop to get even the better ones to look presentable.