CAPTURING THE MOMENT - By Martin French
It was year I fished Darenth's Tip Lake when the moment that changed my
opinions on photographing my ‘prize captures’ changed forever. Unfortunately
for me, the capture sticks in my memory for all the wrong reasons...
‘THE APPRENTICE’ - AUGUST 1999
I sat peering through the brambles and into the crystal clear waters of the
back channel. The dark outline of a large carp could clearly be seen making
its way through the dense weed and out into the bay where my delicately
placed traps were awaiting a visit. I squeezed back through the bracken
and made my way back to my swim, ‘the Midges’, to see if I could make out
more clearly exactly what fish it was that was fast approaching my baited patch.
As I made my way over the high bank the fish was clear as day, ‘The Apprentice’ in all her glory, was sitting directly above my 16mm cork ball pop-up in only 3ft
of water. After sunning herself for a few tense moments my target fish sank
out of sight and a few minutes later the now cloudy brown water erupted
followed by the tell tale sign of my screaming Delkim.
After a short fight, she lay on my unhooking mat leaving me with the dilemma of how was I going to capture my new 34lb PB mirror on film, as I was fishing alone. No problem I thought, I’ll secure the fish in the net and call the guy up in the
‘Rats’, he’ll come down and take some cracking shots for me, which he was
only too happy to do. “Take as many a you like mate” I remember excitedly commenting, “Use up the film”, which he went on to do. There was no digital display back then.
A few days later I collected the prints from Boots and to my horror, the guy had cut my head off in all 16 shots. “That’s typical” I thought, “I’ve only gone and asked Stevie Wonder to take the most important shot of my life” (obviously, not married at this point or I would not dare to say that!!!). From that point on, my mind was made up... Never trust somebody I didn’t know with my camera again!!!
Nowadays with the digital revolution, bad cropping hardly ever happens as the quickly previewable images on today's digital cameras eradicate such disastrous situations. However, to take a good quality ‘prize capture’ photograph is still a skill that requires the use of some basic rules and a general understanding of some advanced techniques...
FIRSTLY, WHAT CAMERA TO BUY?
Today's digital compact cameras can take good quality shots and the results
are perfectly acceptable for most anglers. However, many of us dedicate a tremendous amount of time and effort to pursuing specific carp so to get the best shot possible when the meeting eventually happens is essential. After all, holding your prize fish after all that time, makes all the blank winter nights seem strangely worth it.
So, to achieve better quality sharper images, a digital SLR is an absolute must. Having the ability to reduce the depth of field, exposure settings and shutter speeds makes all the difference when looking to achieve different effects. The question of
what camera really comes down to your budget but the golden rule I always
follow when buying technology is to buy the best you can afford at the time.
THE BASIC RULES
As I said earlier, portrait photography is a skill and buying an expensive camera will not instantly make you David Bailey, but applying some basic rules will make you a more consistent photographer:
• Always shoot with the sun behind you to light the angler and fish face on.
Shooting directly into the sun will cause exposure issues leaving you with the
foreground as a dark silhouette.
• If possible, avoid shooting under the shadow of trees as your camera will struggle with the contrasting bright light of the background and darker foreground and compensate the exposure to suit. This leaves you with the foreground as a dark silhouette.
• Never crop too tightly. Clipping bits of the angler or the fish is a definite no no. If in doubt take a step back, as its far easier to crop into a shot after the event than try to rescue missing body parts!!!
• Take the shot straight on and from the same eye level as the angler.
This usually means kneeling down and not only will this give you a much better angle but it will also help to steady your hand and avoid the dreaded camera shake. You can experiment with different angles after but make sure you get the front on view first.
• Take care to check what is in the background of your image. Avoid ugly
background distractions, such as parked cars or portaloo’s! Shooting your
subject with a clear background will make the angler the focal point of
your shot.
• If using an unfamiliar camera take some practice shoots. These shots are easily deleted and you will be much more familiar with the way the camera focuses when under pressure to take the real thing.
• Keep the camera as still as possible. This is especially important in low light or at night as it is very easy to get blurred shots with low shutter speeds.
ADVANCED TECHNIQUES
Most people won’t want me to get too technical, but if you are looking to take more professional looking images then these factors are well worth learning more about:
Use a Portrait lense
I’m sure you have all seen shots of 20lb’ers that look like 50’s, caught by the anglers with the massive hands!!! Personally, I much prefer a realistic shot and the way to achieve this is to avoid wide angle lenses (ie 24-35mm). The best length lens for shooting portraits is 50-60mm as anything else alters the perspective and makes the fish look bigger or smaller than reality. Personally, I use a specific 50mm lens but you can just aim to use the 50mm part of your telephoto (zoom) lens supplied with your camera.
Focal Point
The key to ALL good photography is focal point. By focal point I mean the part of the image that your eye is drawn to, ie the pop-up (see below). In portrait photography this is usually the catch lights (highlights) in the subject eyes but with angling photography it's the foreground (ie the angler and the fish) and the way to accentuate the foreground is to throw the background out of focus and this is called the 'depth of field'.
Understanding ‘Depth of field’
The area in front of and behind the point of focus where the image will still appear to be acceptably sharp is called the ‘depth of field’ and this is controlled by the size of the ‘aperture’ which is measured in ‘F Stops’.
Controlling the ‘Depth of field’
To control the ‘depth of field’ you must learn to control your aperture. Large apertures (ie F1.8) reduce the depth of field and are great for portraits and smaller apertures (ie F22) are better for landscapes and sunsets when the whole image is required to be sharp.
So, to adjust the aperture, and I hope your still with me, simply set your camera to
AV Mode (Aperture priority). This allows you to easily adjust the ‘F Stops’ leaving the camera to automatically set the shutter speed and the correct exposure.
This is how I shoot everything at present, our photographer at work once told me "Shoot everything manually, it will make you a much better photographer", but personally, I think I'll leave that to the pro's because AV Mode is much safer as the camera does the hard work. Try it, with practice you will soon get used to controlling just how much of your shot is in focus, and believe me you do get much better results.
Applying ‘Depth of field’ to your fishing portraits
To keep both angler and fish sharp yet throw the background out nicely, you need to set your depth of field to be approximately 2-3 feet and by trial and error, I have worked out that this means setting your aperture to around F3.2 (on a 50mm lens). In my experience, that gives you a really nice final image.
Shutter Speed
This is the length of time the shutter is open and therefore the time that the film is exposed to light. When in AV Mode the camera will automatically set your shutter speed for you, but just always make sure that the shutter speed does not drop below 1/100th of a second or you will get blurred shots, unless you use a tripod or have incredibly steady hands (ie not been on the vino!!).
How to take great sunset shots
I always carry a small tripod (£20‘ish from Jessops) in my rucksack as not only is it essential for taking self portraits, it also does wonders for your sunset shots.
Set your camera to AV Mode then F22 (ie keeping everything in focus), the shutter speed will drop down to a few seconds because of the low light, but that will be fine on your tripod. Then set your ‘exposure compensation’ to under expose by a couple of stops (lost yet, I hope not!!!) as this makes your shadows a really dense black and keeps your sky exposed correctly and not washed out and dull. Try it, the results are great.
Shooting RAW & Photoshop
This is a whole article in itself but getting to grips with specialist formats like RAW and photographic software like Photoshop are really helpful for balancing your shots and give your final image a professional feel, maybe that's for another time.
PUTTING IT ALL INTO PRACTICE
I know for some of you that this article was probably too much but for those who were interested, I hope these techniques will help. Even if it's just to start you thinking when taking pictures of your fellow anglers 'magic moment'.
So may your next capture be the fish of your dreams, and if on a frosty night this winter these dream seems like they are much more than just a cast away, just remember... 'YOU ONLY NEED ONE BITE' (Terry Hearn's 'Still Searching').
Cheers & Tight Lines
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