{"id":2974,"date":"2014-07-07T01:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T08:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/?p=2974"},"modified":"2014-06-19T07:44:16","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T14:44:16","slug":"the-airgun-and-the-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/the-airgun-and-the-camera.html","title":{"rendered":"The Airgun and the Camera"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are two kinds of shooting that I really enjoy: popping away at targets with an airgun and capturing nature and wildlife images with a digital camera. Believe it or not, the two support each other.<\/p>\n

Before we get to the specifics of what I mean, let\u2019s grab hold of some basic background information. To wit: people wobble. That\u2019s right; you, me, everybody, wobbles. We don\u2019t notice it most of the time because in most folks it is slight and inconsequential. But if you have ever weighed yourself on a Wii balance board, the results displayed on the screen show the movement of your center of gravity over the balance board, and it\u2019s not a single dot. Instead, it\u2019s a tracing showing movement. We are constantly in motion, you and I, with our muscles continually micro-tweaking our position.<\/p>\n

When an airgun shooter wants to shoot offhand \u2013 that is, from a standing position \u2013 immediately that inherent wobble begins to matter a great deal. Even with iron sights, you find you can\u2019t stay pointed where you want to be: at the exact center of the target. And when you add a scope with magnification to your airgun, the problem appears to be even worse, as the field of view careens back and forth across the face of the target.<\/p>\n

Now, here\u2019s the real rub: short of dying, having yourself stuffed with a steel rod up your center, you can\u2019t stop the wobble. Sure, Olympic ten-meter shooters try to control it with special jackets, pants, underwear (no kidding) and shoes, but they still wobble.<\/p>\n

The best you can do, as an ordinary (non-Olympic) airgun shooter is to try to control it and deal with it.<\/p>\n

Control it.<\/strong> Set your feet at shoulder width, relax and settle into your center of gravity, rest your elbows against your sides, take a breath in and let half of it out, ease the first stage out of the trigger, and take your shot.<\/p>\n

Deal with it.<\/strong> In my view (and there certainly are contrary views, so try what I suggest and if it works well for you, use it; otherwise check out some of the contrary views), one of the best ways to deal with the wobble is to get the timing right. Here\u2019s a prime example: some years ago I was shooting a scoped rifle at a field target match. On one of the standing lanes, I was wobbling fiercely, but the wobble was fairly regular, left and right from the center of the target. I realized that if I triggered the shot while I was aimed at the center of the kill zone, I would actually be in the act of moving off the target, but if I triggered the shot while I was at the peak of the wobble to one side, I would actually be in the act of moving back onto the center of the target. So I triggered the shot when I had \u201cwobbled off,\u201d and the target went down.<\/p>\n

So what does this have to do with wildlife photography? A lot, it turns out. When I am shooting wildlife with my Panasonic FZ200 superzoom camera, I am generally shooting at extremely high zoom levels: 24x, 48x, sometimes 96x, and I shoot handheld, standing up. As you might imagine, the image sometimes moves around quite a bit in the viewfinder, so I use the same skills: feet at shoulder width, relax into my center of gravity (if I can manage it in the excitement), take in a breath, and let out half, press the shutter halfway down to lock the autofocus and autoexposure, and take the shot when the timing is right.<\/p>\n

Even better, I have found that the more I practice with the camera, it helps my airgun shooting, and the more I practice with the airguns, it helps my wildlife photography. It appears to be a synergistic system, and it sure is fun!<\/p>\n

What follows are some photos that I was fortunate enough — using the techniques described in this blog — to capture when my wife and I were walking on Peebles Island near Troy NY. On both days, it was a \u201cGod likes me\u201d moment.<\/p>\n

On July 24, 2013, I shot this image of the dam on the north side of Peebles Island. (Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.)<\/p>\n

\"FZ150<\/a><\/p>\n

My wife, who has extraordinary distance vision, said, “What’s that at the far end of the dam?” At full optical and digital zoom, I saw this:<\/p>\n

\"FZ150<\/a><\/p>\n

On June 16, 2014, we saw the following:<\/p>\n

Due to recent rains, water was pouring over the dam.<\/p>\n

\"FZ200<\/a><\/p>\n

Herons were waiting below the dam.<\/p>\n

\"FZ200<\/a><\/p>\n

One of them caught a fish.<\/p>\n

\"FZ200<\/a><\/p>\n

An eagle scared the heron off the fish.<\/p>\n

\"FZ200<\/a><\/p>\n

He thought about his options for a moment.<\/p>\n

\"FZ200<\/a><\/p>\n

And flew off with his ill-gotten gains.<\/p>\n

\"FZ200<\/a><\/p>\n

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jock Elliott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are two kinds of shooting that I really enjoy: popping away at targets with an airgun and capturing nature and wildlife images with a digital camera. Believe it or not, the two support each other. Before we get to the specifics of what I mean, let\u2019s grab hold of some basic background information. To…»<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,20,211,184,145],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2974"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2985,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions\/2985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}