Bird studies with a camera

by Frank M. Chapman

The beginner must not suppose that good bird photographs can be made only with expensive apparatus. Under favorable conditions there is no great difference in the results secured with the ordinary camera and lens of any reputable maker and those of the highest class. My own work has for the greater part been done with an outfit costing about thirty dollars; and although the best lens is, of course, to be desired it is not a necessity, and cost therefore is no more an obstacle to the hunting of birds with a camera than it is to their pursuit with a gun.

The Camera.—Individual taste will doubtless govern the size of the camera chosen, but most naturalists and sportsmen consider the camera carrying a plate four by five inches as the one best adapted to their wants, and with this decision I heartily agree. The advantages of size, weight, and economy, both as regards the camera, its holders, and plates, are all in favor of the 4 × 5, while as far as the bird photographer is concerned, it is not often that he has need of anything larger. The image of a bird will rarely be without adequate setting in a space four by five inches, which will also be found to be large enough for the portrayal of nests and eggs.

The 4 × 5 also reduces proportionately in making lantern slides, and if the picture is made the long way of the plate—that is, higher than broad—it can be easily adapted for illustrative purposes in duodecimo or octavo books. When a larger picture is desired it can readily be made by enlargement, an increase in size of three diameters, or six times the area, being possible from a sharp negative without undue loss of definition.

For use from a tripod any one of the several excellent long-focus cameras now on the market will be found to answer every requirement. If it is proposed to employ a telephoto lens, care should be taken to select the camera combining greatest bellows length with rigidity. A reversible back increases the size somewhat but adds to the length of bellows, and will be found serviceable in the many awkward situations in which the bird photographer is often placed by the nature of his subjects.

The Kearton brothers have an “adjustable miniature” on the top of their camera, which they state “is used as a sort of view finder when making studies of flying birds. 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.”[^[A]] The purposes of this attachment, however, will, it seems probable, be better served by the reflecting camera described below, while as a finder alone its place may be taken by the “iconoscope” and other of the prism finders, the brilliant image cast by which is such a striking and satisfactory improvement on the hazy outlines given by the average so-called “finder.”

[A]. From Wild Life at Home, how to Study and Photograph It, by R. Kearton, illustrated by C. Kearton; a work of the utmost interest to the animal photographer, who should also read With Nature and a Camera, by the same authors (Cassell & Co.).

For use as a hand-box only two kinds of camera are available, for it must be borne in mind that the set-focus or short-focus, wide angle “snap-shot” cameras, so popular among the button-pressing fraternity, are not adapted to the wants of the bird photographer, who must therefore avail himself of either a twin-lens or a reflecting camera.

Twin-lens cameras are manufactured by several well-known firms, but the trade size is of too short focus to be desirable. In this type of camera two lenses of equal foci are employed. They are set one above the other in bellows, which move as one. The lower lens makes the picture, the upper projects a duplicate of the image cast by the lower lens to a mirror set at an angle of forty-five degrees to the plane of the plate, whence it is reflected upward to a ground glass, which is protected by a hood, on top of the camera.

To focus perfectly the lenses should be “matched” or “paired”—in short, interchangeable—thereby greatly increasing the cost of the camera, which is also rendered objectionable by its large size.

The reflecting camera possesses all the advantages of the twin-lens, but requires only one lens, and when in use is not materially larger than the ordinary 4 × 5 long-focus box.