As it is my hope that bird-photography may become still more popular than it is now, both because of its ornithological value and because of its excellence as a sport for the man or woman of limited means, I should like to give enough information to enable others to go and do likewise. The patience required has been much exaggerated, as well as the hardships. Patience, commendable patience, wonderful patience and comfortable laziness are closely related, and any discomfort is entirely due to the photographer's want of foresight, and is, I am sure, no necessary part of the sport. The hiding contrivance, whether it be a tent or shed, is the most important part of the apparatus, and no time is wasted in making it as perfect as possible. A good maxim is to try all apparatus well before using it in the field, and it is well to place all orders with the makers during the winter to save vexatious delays. Another is to keep a list of the apparatus to be used and check it every morning before starting out, or to keep everything likely to be wanted in the rucksack, as it is most annoying to find the absence of a small thing, such as a tripod screw, ruining a whole day's work. I use a Lancaster half-plate camera with Mackenzie Wishart envelopes. My favourite lens is one of fifteen-inch focus, because it gives a good-sized image, as I see no sense in going to the trouble of getting the camera within six feet of a shy bird and then being content with an image the size of a postage stamp. Telephoto lenses do not appeal to me. With Kearton, I believe in developing some, at any rate, of one's exposures at the end of the day, and my first day anywhere is spent in fitting up a comfortable dark room. I have never been to a place yet where I could not get a cellar, attic or shed which could not in a few hours be converted to use. As in the majority of cases fast plates have to be used, and as the less light falls on them the better, it is well to acquire the habit of working in the dark. A little practice soon enables one to change plates by touch and to store exposed plates in light-tight boxes by the same means. The best book for learners, in my opinion, is Watkin's manual. When using panchromatic plates I acquired the habit of time-development, and now seldom see a plate till it comes out of hypo. King, liking the panchromatic results, but not altogether trusting this work in the dark, wrote to Wratten and Wainwright for a safe light, and when the deep green glass came he was disappointed to find that his candle would not shine through it, so I advised him to send it back and say he found a piece of board painted green did equally well. As regards shutters, I believe in testing them with a Wynne's shutter-tester before using them, as the speeds the makers give are quite unreliable. I have three shutters fitted to my camera. A time and instantaneous is fixed on the front and carries a flange on which the lens screws, so that the shutter is behind the lens. The other surface of the front has two little catches for a silent studio shutter, which I can fix on by taking out the back of the camera, the tube passing out by a hole in the front board. The less you bring your hands into sight by having to manipulate the front of the camera the better, and when doing so gloves should be worn and all movements be very slow. Then the most expensive and least useful is the focal plane shutter at the back. In choosing a shutter, the great desideratum is noiselessness. A mackintosh focussing cloth is useful, and other accessories I have acquired by associating with other bird-photographers are a magnifier for use in focussing, and in connection with this I think it pays to grind one's own screens in order to get a fine grain. Then a blackened brass cylindrical hood, to screw on to the lens front and project two or three inches, is useful against sun and rain. The Sinclair tripod screw is another acquisition, and the Rambler tripod as good as any I have tried. I believe in keeping a note-book in which, as far as possible, all details are entered directly after the exposure, the other half being used for notes on the birds, which I enter on the spot with a red dwarf stylo. Wherever available I have placed under prints the full particulars of exposure. For educational purposes I think that mine will be
THE TIERCEL DOZING WITH HIS EYES CLOSED. Light 30, Plate speed 250, Subject number 100, Stop F16, Exposure ⅓sec.
more useful than King's, because our methods are, perforce, quite different. He is photographing more or less all the year round, and with constant practice turns out a properly exposed negative without being afterwards able to give you details about light, stop or shutter speed. I, on the other hand, am restricted to about a fortnight each year; therefore I have to pay great attention to detail in order to get good results. He is like the normal individual who can rise from his chair and walk out of the room without thinking of how it is done. I am like the poor man with locomotor ataxia, who has to repeat to himself, "Now I must bring my feet back under the edge of the chair, now I must lean forward and straighten my hips as I straighten my knees." Accordingly I use a Watkin's standard meter, which looks complicated, but is soon learnt, and test the light whenever I can. For birds at close quarters I always use 100 as the subject number. The only thing I have found of any use with under-exposures is to first of all harden the film with formalin and then develop at a temperature of about 90deg. Fahr. Of course, every fresh bird that you try has some characteristic which has to be studied; that is where some of the sport comes in. The stumbling block in the case of adult Peregrines is the extreme rapidity of the sudden turn of the head. Instead of trying to overcome this by brute force, by giving an extremely short exposure, it is better to wait for the turn and expose directly it is over.
Photographs being more useful scientifically if taken to scale, I have a piece of broomstick with sixteen inches prominently marked on it. When placed on rock C and focussed on the screen it was found that a halfpenny (one inch in diameter) covered five inches on the broomstick, so that the bird photographed on C would be a fifth of life-size, and in afterwards making an enlargement, if I enlarge the image on the negative five times I get the bird life-size. On B the halfpenny covered six inches, showing that the bird would then be a sixth life-size on the negative and in the middle of the eyrie a seventh. As nearly all the illustrations are enlarged, I might state that the largest image among my Peregrines is that of the Peregrine stretching himself. This on the negative measures three and a-half inches from the top of his head to the lowest visible portion of his left wing. Most mistakes in field-photography are due to getting flurried; therefore it is well to try and proceed slowly and methodically, even if seconds seem precious. Lastly, a rucksack is the most convenient means for transporting apparatus, and the safest, because a heavy bag swung over one shoulder is likely to suddenly shift when you are in some awkward situation and shake your nerve, if it does nothing worse.
