Movie Makers (Jan-May 1928)

is so important in telephoto work that a few extra hints may be desirable. The eye trained for comparatively good distance judging in level or smooth rolling country is apt to prove a poor guide in the rarified atmosphere of high rocky mountains or amid the dense trunks of a virgin forest where Nature does things on a large scale. Wild life photography does not permit distance checking with a tape measure, and seldom gives time for the employment of a range finder. The photographer must be ready for instant action at any distance or lose the picture entirely. I took with me last summer a distance meter which I had practised with at home and carefully checked. As we entered new territory I amused myself by guessing the distance to rocks and trees and then proving my guesses all wrong by means of the distance meter. Very soon, however, the new scale of relative values began to soak in and I could guess much more accurately. This preliminary "target practice" helped greatly and not only saved me out of focus shots, but also helped to overcome that natural nervousness of the hunter suddenly confronted with the game, which old timers call "buck fever." Other amateurs have repeatedly asked regarding the use of color filters in wild animal photography. Unquestionedly a color filter is a good thing, but not usually necessary for big game. The animal will most likely appear in poor light, shaded by the forest or by a rocky cliff, early in the morning or late in the evening, and require a pretty wide open lens. We photographed beaver at work on a dam as late as seven o'clock in the evening. As the best 6-inch telephoto lenses have a speed of /4.5 only, a color filter which would in any way cut down the exposure frequently does more harm than good. In this connection my experience indicates that the supposed effect of high rarified atmosphere on exposure is frequently over estimated. An exposure meter is, of course, the sure test; but I have seldom used one. The camera hunter who returns from a trip with good close-ups of the game may nevertheless have a pretty unsatisfactory picture for projection. In the excitement of the hunt one may easily forget that a picture requires some sort of scenario and neglect to shoot the "leads" which add so much to the completed picture. The start of the trip, various exciting thrills and adventures en route, the difficulties of precipice and thicket are all part of the hunt. Be sure to take close-ups of the camera man posed in action (with a spare camera) and edit the films with proper cut-ins suggested by the story. The taking of this lead material offers opportunity for the refinements of iris vignetting, cloud effects (taken with an adjustable sky filter — half orange and half white), and comedy interest. It may be interesting to note that a fine still camera of the reflex type, equipped with a 17-inch telephoto lens, did not bring home the bacon as compared with the movie outfits. When extended to take the big lens, the reflex camera could not be carried along narrow ledges on the mountain peaks or through the brush below. Furthermore, at 50 to 75 feet it required extremely accurate focusing and objects a few feet more or less than the given distance were thrown out. Our movie cameras, focused by guess work, generally produced pictures of much greater depth and so satisfying that individual frames were enlarged up to 4x5 inches to make illustrations for this article, for Nature Magazine, and for the rotogravure section of the New York Times. VACUUM CUP HOOFS It Is Said a Rocky Mountain Goat Could Find Footing On a Wall Paper Pattern. The movie camera has another point of excellence as a weapon for big-game hunting. In any wild animal picture the pose is the thing. The photographer never knows just what his wild actor star is going to do. He may snap a picture, thinking it his best and last chance, and the very next moment miss the picture of (Continued on page 129) Ninety-nine