Wildlife Camera Traps Tips And Techniques

[Reyed Mia (Apprentice, DIU)]

Wildlife Camera Traps Tips And Techniques

Wildlife photography is defined by a single overarching challenge: getting close to critters. The elusive nature of our subjects is what makes wildlife photography unique and exciting, but also immensely frustrating. The solution to capturing our skittish subjects traditionally has been the use of telephoto lenses, which allow us to photograph animals from a distance. While this technique is practical and clearly yields beautiful results, it also can limit creative options in terms of the species that we can photograph and the ways that we can portray them. Traditional techniques require finding animals during the daytime and prevent us from using the focal lengths and lighting techniques available to other types of photography.

Camera and Lens

Forget about fancy autofocus and frames per second; your camera only needs two features: a wired shutter release and a sleep (i.e., standby) mode. The shutter release allows you to hook up the camera to a motion sensor, and the sleep mode prevents the camera from burning up its battery while you're waiting for a critter to show up. For some reason, mirrorless cameras often fall short for one of these criteria and don't work for camera trapping even though their small size would be a real asset.

Motion Sensor

There are many sensors out there, but in terms of commercially available options for camera trapping, you're limited to active infrared (AIR) or passive infrared (PIR). AIR sensors create a narrow beam between two units (similar to a garage door sensor) and trigger the camera when something intercepts the beam. In contrast, PIR sensors are one-piece units that detect changes in heat across a broad area. The advantage of AIR sensors is that they can more finely control where an animal will trigger the camera, giving you more control over composition. The advantage of PIR sensors is that they're easier to set up, don't require the animal to be in a specific spot and generally are less expensive. I'd recommend PIR sensors for people new to camera trapping.

Housing

Leaving a camera outside may expose it to precipitation, insects, frisky critters and theft. The protection needed for a specific camera trap set varies. At a minimum, you'll probably want a rain cover. For full protection, a sealed hard-bodied housing is needed. I build my own from Pelican cases and assorted plumbing supplies. If you don't want to build your own housing, Camtraptions offers a simple, portable shelter, and TRLcam provides custom-made fully protected housings. Many camera trappers lock their cameras to trees or other structures, but I just set up in remote areas and cross my fingers. I've yet to have a camera stolen.

Flashes



Many animals are active at night or during twilight, so you may need to use artificial light. Most camera trappers use Nikon flashes because of their excellent standby function, which enables them to run for weeks on their internal batteries. If you want to use other brands, it's best to run them off of external 6V batteries. If you're shooting during twilight or daytime, a single flash mixing with ambient light works great. However, at night, you'll probably want at least two flashes: a key light that illuminates and shapes the animal, and a fill light that adds detail to the shadows cast by the key light. Lighting night scenes is the most difficult element of camera trapping.

Gear

Before I was a camera trapper, I lusted over big white lenses I couldn't afford. Now I lust over grip gear, which is fortunately much less expensive. A big challenge of camera trapping is getting your camera, flashes and sensor to hold securely in place on rugged terrain. You sometimes can get away with a tripod and light stands, but often you'll need to attach gear to trees, rocks and other structures. I use a variety of gear, including clamps, magic arms, flexible tripods and tie-down straps.

Cameras: Canon EOS 6D, Canon EOS Rebel T3i, Nikon D610

Lenses: Canon EF 17-40mm ƒ/4L USM, Canon EF-S 10-22mm ƒ/3.5-4.5 USM (destroyed by an elephant in Kenya), Canon EF-S 17-55mm ƒ/2.8 IS USM (destroyed by cows in Kenya), Tokina AT-X 10-17mm ƒ/3.5-4.5 AF DX Fisheye, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 18-35mm ƒ/3.5-4.5G ED

Housing: Pelican 1150 Case and custom lens port by TRLcam

Flash: Various Nikon Speedlights

Flash Trigger: Camtraptions wireless radio trigger or homemade wired sync with Ethernet cables and Pixel RJ45 adapters

Flash Grip: Camo-painted Avenger C-Stand, JOBY GorillaPod SLR-Zoom, A-clamps with mini-ballheads bolted to them, LumoPro compact lightstand, cam straps and lots of camo gaffer's tape

To Mount A Camera To A Tree: Manfrotto 244 Magic Arm, MeFOTO ballhead, Avenger F301 baby female wall plate, cam straps

https://www.outdoorphotographer.com/tips-techniques/wildlife-techniques/camera-traps-for-wildlife/