Page:Bird-lore Vol 01.djvu/121

 =Bird-Lore= A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE

DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS

Photographing Shy Wild Birds and Beasts at Home BY R. KEARTON, F. Z. S. Author of "Wild Life at Home: How to Study and Photograph It;" " With Nature and a Camera," etc. Y brother and I were both delighted to see the first number of Bird-Lore, and take the oppor- tunity of congratulating our naturalist and pho- graphic chums across the Atlantic upon having such a practical and highly interesting magazine to help them in their enchanting pursuits. Such a publication would "^^^^pgj^ have been a veritable godsend to us when we started our natural history photography. As we have had a good deal of experience in circumventing the cunning and timidity of the majority of wild creatures living in the British Isles, and the same characteristics in this respect are commoa to wild animals all the world over, I propose to tell by what means we have secured some of our rarest pictures. First of all, I ought to explain that we never use anything but a strongly built, half-plate stand camera, fitted with a Dallmeyer stig- matic lens, and an adjustable miniature on the top, which is used as a sort of view-finder when making studies of fiying birds and mam- mals in motion. When fixed in position, and its focus has been set exactly like its working companion beneath it, both are racked out in the same ratio by the screw dominating the larger apparatus which, when charged with a dark slide and stopped down according to the requirements of light and speed of exposure, needs no further atten- tion. When the combination is in use, the photographer focuses with his right hand, and, holding the air ball or reservoir of his pneu- matic tube in his left, squeezes it quickly and firmly directly he has achieved a sufficiently clear and strong definition of his object upon