524 
FOREST AND STREAM 
September, 1918 
THE SPORTSMAN’S CAMERA AND ITS STORY 
THE SMALLEST CAMERA CAN TELL THE STORY OF A TRIP MORE VIVIDLY THAN CAN 
THE WEIGHTIEST DICTIONARY, AND WITH INFINITELY MORE HUMAN INTEREST 
By EUGENE S. ANDERSON 
B ANG! You’ve missed! Bang! You’ve 
got him! And you’re mighty lucky to 
have had a chance to pull the trigger 
twice. With the camera it is a different 
story. Make a miss and you get no second 
shot—just a chance to cuss and ask “What 
the Sam Hill I did wrong in shooting that 
negative.” It is not likely that you 
will be able to retrace your steps to 
make a better negative. 
At that, we sportsmen are an incon¬ 
sistent set of chaps. The Editor is 
fairly bald headed answering our 
questions on the fine points of our 
shooting irons. (I’ve never seen the 
gentleman, but I feel sure my state¬ 
ment is correct.) But nearly every 
man jack of us will tote a camera 
along on the trail, use it on trust, cuss 
it when the pictures are N. G., and 
load it up again without troubling to 
find the cause of “those rotten pic¬ 
tures.” Why, boys, the camera is just 
as much an instrument of precision 
and just as delicately adjusted as your 
guns; it is plain horse sense that you 
must know the fine points of either 
one of them and shoot straight if 
you’re going to bring home the bacon, 
whether that happens to be the horns 
of a big buck or a picture of him. 
Just get a good bead on that last 
sentence and you’ll make a bull’s-eye 
if you notice that it says “shoot 
straight” and not “shoot quick.” The 
trouble with us Americans is that we 
are a crowd of “speed artists” and try 
to take everything on high, instead of 
throwing her into second once in a 
while. So, with a camera, the ten¬ 
dency is to make snapshots of every¬ 
thing, regardless of light or subject 
conditions; one might as well tackle 
big game with a pop gun. 
Getting down to real facts, the chief 
photographic sin of the sportsman- 
photographer is under-exposure. When 
the camera is held in the hand, 
about the slowest shutter speed which 
can be used without danger of blurr¬ 
ing the image is 1/25 second; even 
with fast anastigmat lenses, this ex¬ 
posure is too short to get good detail 
in the shadows except under favorable con¬ 
ditions. The sportsman is a dweller of the 
woods and stream banks, however, and 
there the sunlight is subdued and lessened 
by heavy foliage. The snapshot is insuffi¬ 
cient to get detail except where direct sun¬ 
light filters through, and the rest of the 
negative will be clear, printing coal black 
on the picture. Ever make a picture of 
your pal fishing in a rocky ravine, his head 
covered perhaps by a broad brimmed hat 
which shaded his face? Snapshot? Didn’t 
his features resemble those of a typical 
gentleman from Alabama, one whose for¬ 
bears were introduced into this country 
from Africa through the medium of some 
of our Puritan forefathers? I’ve made 
pictures of this kind, and ten to one you 
have, too! 
One reason that the snapshot is so preva¬ 
lent is because it seems to be a bother to 
carry a tripod or to take the trouble to find 
out what the correct exposure should be. 
In regard to the first objection, it should 
be admitted that since the sportsman usu¬ 
ally travels light, there is some ground for 
his objection. But recently there has been 
marketed the little clamp mentioned last 
month in “The Use of the Sportsman’s 
Camera,” which is so light and compact 
that it adds to the outfit practically nothing 
in weight or bulk, and is so important that 
the man who really values the record of a 
trip should not fail to provide the clamp 
in case he refuses to carry a tripod. This 
brings us face to face with the fact that 
it is not a simple matter for an inexperi¬ 
enced photographer to estimate exposures 
under unusual conditions. There are, how* 
ever, a number of devices on the market 
which tell practically at a glance, the ap¬ 
proximate exposure for all possible sub¬ 
jects and light conditions. As exposure is 
not a mathematically exact quantity, these 
devices are very satisfactory. A small cel¬ 
luloid disk, fitting flat in your breast 
pocket, takes up no room, weighs noth¬ 
ing gives exposure at a glance—why 
waste films and lose a precious record? 
Take my word for it—I’ve been there 
good and plenty—full exposure, using 
a tripod or tripod clamp, rather than 
the making of snapshots, is half the 
battle in your shooting with the camera 
when on the trail. Partner, I’m a sen¬ 
sitive soul, but I’ll show you that I 
know whereof I speak; behold an early 
fizzle, illustrated at the 'left. 
you take my word abcut 
the need of full exposure, and let 
us get along to something less 
technical, and equally important. Sup¬ 
pose you have been out on a bully good 
trip; you have had such a corking good 
time that you want to spread the news, 
in no better way perhaps than by writ¬ 
ing a little yarn for Forest and Stream. 
Did you ever try it? Didn’t you find 
that what you put down in black and 
white lacked a woodsy color and smell 
—somehow or other it didn’t have all, 
the enthusiasm and “pep” that you 
wanted it to have? What’s the answer? 
Spontaneity. And with pictures it is 
just the same. They must be natural, 
lifelike, and spontaneous if they.are to. 
tell a story. Anyone can make a rec-i 
ord picture; what we want is story¬ 
telling pictures. Take a concrete case:i 
Your pal has brought down a big buck; 
what did he do? Did he say, “That 
was the best shot ever made in thisl 
country, and you ought to be proud to 
associate with a clever chap like ME?’’! 
Blazes ! No ! Chances are he started 
on a dead run for the buck, yelling 
like a Comanche, stubbing his toe as he> 
ran, and otherwise acting like an eight-, 
year old that has plugged his first 
woodchuck! Well, how are you going 
to make the photograph? Suppose you 
pose him with one foot on the horns of the' 
fallen buck, rifle upright with the butt 
resting on the knee of the uplifted leg, 
chest bulged out, eyes staring at the cam¬ 
era ! You’ve seen this kind of picture: 
Say, pard, did Steve look that way wher 
he saw that buck drop? Did he? Ht 
didn’t? Then why illustrate your yarr 
with a picture of Steve doing some 
thing that he wouldn’t have done i: 
you hadn’t set him up to look like a 
little tin god on inspection? It wasn’ 
Steve’s fault—it was yours. While h<, 
was so exuberant over his kill, he die 
half a dozen things that you could have 
caught with that camera, and every one oi 
1UPPOSE 
A slow snapshot in the deep woods—the beau¬ 
tiful birch trail up Mt. Greylock in the Berk- 
shires. Had a tripod been used, and sufficient 
exposure been given, there would have been 
full detail and no blur due to motion of camera 
during slow snapshot. On the trail, subjects 
and light conditions of this sort are often met, 
and sad disappointments awaits the man who 
tries the impossible—the snapshot 
Exposure 1/10 second at f:i6 
2 seconds at f: 16 would have been better 
