How to take good trophy shots - tips please

[Ian Hugo Arnott]

The Chairman on Friday


Quite. I have been fortunate enough to see many of young Paul's trophy shots of the past 40 years - photographs and slides of him holding up unfeasibly large fish and small shapely women to camera, grinning madly as he lowered his head to take a large bite out of them. Never seen in the old slideshows, he tells me, as they might have scared the in-crowd pitbulls.


As ever,

B.B.

Chairman,

What a fine chap young Paul is!


As ever

Hugo

 

[Andreas Opitz]

Andreas, I've had something similar. I found that it was caused by my camera detecting my face and setting the exposure to said face. As the fish was closer to the camera than my face it was overexposed. See if you can disable face-detect. My current camera has a multi-shot timer, but the exposure and focus is set at the first shot. I have to make sure either the fish is in place for the first shot ... or more usually I hold my open hands in the expected position of the fish for the first shot so the camera has got something to focus on. I have a lot of photos of my empty hands

Sounds like a plan. Will look into it tonight. Cheers Andy.

 

[Simon Haggis]

This is what happens when I look at the camera

"It's a carp moneypenny"

 

[Jon Whelan]

Quality fish there Simon, good photo’s & what a res’! I think I know the venue, camping downstream of the dam whereby a local advised us to re- pitch in his garden as they released water late at night. Good job as the spot was a good 15ft submerged the following morning impounded by further smaller dams downstream.

The most important is to get & be organised - get to know ones camera & practice self takes holding a stick in the garden or in the case of kippers like these a sac of spuds! Fish of this size need literally just a few more than the default 10s found on most camera's to shoot! I have had quite a bit of practice whilst being a bailiff in France for a season.

Would not claim to be overly great at photography but a few considerations.

Check which profile the camera is utilising i.e. the colour balances

Use the correct white balance & check the histogram setting on the display for correct exposure

Use the appropriate aperture setting to achieve the desired depth of field in balance with maximising the shutter speed

Maximise the use of the ISO settings & use under/over exposure settings where appropriate

Use a digital timer that one can programme the amount & frequency of frames, etc or bulb release. If using a camera that focus' prior to commencing timer the digital timer will help retain focus

Be careful of sun glare as mentioned bleaching out key features/tones of the subject

Digital on camera flashes are pretty poor in my opinion. Spend some money on a dedicated flash – these can have a better IR facility that will always improve automatic focusing accuracy. Place a white fine net (forgot what it's called) to soften the intensity & lessen the glare

Take the shots in RAW format rather than JPEG & covert back home on the PC

Appropriate use of filters – polarising, UV, etc

Appropriate use of lenses ie the greater the focal length the narrower the ‘picture’ width

Before releasing the fish, preview the shots by zooming as far as possible onto the subject - in the case of the fish look at the clarity of the eyes & key features such as scales & fins etc

With time, all the above & those points listed before will be second nature & can be performed without thinking

Cheers, Jon

 

[Will Smith]

I'm sure I remember reading on here "under the chin and over the tits" as the correct place to hold a fish for a photo.

 

[Simon Haggis]

Homepage pic on this site currently is a cracker. Ticks all the boxes for me.

 

[Anthony Pearson]

With respect to Andreas' problem of 'flare', think back to those Physics lessons where you had to learn by rote all manner of things of little future use, such as 'angle of incidence equals angle of reflection.' If you hold the fish square-on to the flash of the camera, it will reflect back into the lens. Therefore, holding the fish at a slight angle will reduce and sometimes eliminate (unless its a huge fish) the bounce back.

 

[Simon Haggis]

Quality fish there Simon, good photo’s & what a res’! I think I know the venue,

Good advice, thanks Jon and others.

Shots were taken at Bin el Ouidane in the Atlas Mountains. I'd say it's pretty hardcore fishing there but absolutely brilliant none the less being so remote, not too many creature comforts! The weather is the hardcore element being so exposed.

Those particular fish were shots taken in a gap in this type of weather:

But when's it's good, it's amazing:

 

[Jon Whelan]

Thought so - travelled thru there some 18 years ago during my more hippy days!

In the middle of nowhere, stunning environment & quality fish to boot!

Thoroughly enjoyable post & thanks for sharing. Inspiring stuff!

Jon