Little game hunt with camera challenge

[rich59]

I have been thinking about how our ancestors caught their wild food. One clear skill was getting close to their prey before letting loose the weopon of choice. It occured to me that it might be a worthy challenge for people to stealthily approach a genuinely wild rabbit (without having trained it first or trapped it in any way) and take its picture. The rules would be that it would have to be an ordinary camera lens without use of zoom. The camera would have to be in your hand. The winner would be the one to get the largest image of a rabbit without any editing of the picture other than formatting it to be of minimal size for posting on the web.

Or would one be accused of animal worrying?

 

[hammock monkey]

good plan - i'm about to move from gitty Cambridge to sunny Manchester..not so many rabbits about - but i'll be trying to move to the Pennines asap... i'll see how i do - this'll be a great compo!

maybe extend it to pretty much any wild mamal...i've heard about sneaking up on dear with the false antlers etc - might grab the mrs's bunny costume and see how lucky i get....

mincing round Salford in that....doesnt bare thinking about really.

 

[boisdevie]

You can get extremely close to rabbits at the Folkestone end of the tunnel as you drive past in your car. Would that be cheating taking a photo from the car window?
And as an aside it's very strange but you don't see a single rabbit at the French end of the tunnel - wonder why.

 

[Klenchblaize]

You should also disqualify any image showing the rabbit in the advance stages of miximetoasties as you can get so close as to catch hold and dispatch the poor critters.

Happy crawling!

 

[sam_acw]

This is a great suggestion. You can test your stalking ability, ranging (and to some extent your aim) and there's no chance of wounding anything.
It's a probably a good way to get into these skills if you don't have a mentor available.

 

[rich59]

You can get extremely close to rabbits at the Folkestone end of the tunnel as you drive past in your car. Would that be cheating taking a photo from the car window?
And as an aside it's very strange but you don't see a single rabbit at the French end of the tunnel - wonder why.

Sounds like you have trained your rabbits to ignore cars? By all means show the photo to prove the point, but I don't think it is quite allowed.

I have now got a mental image of you sneaking about in the woods disguised as a car!!! Next thing you know there will be people sneaking about dressed up as rabbits!!

As rabbits are appropriate for Easter how about Easter Monday as the deadline for the comp?

 

[w00dsmoke]

Ok it's not a rabbit...From my tent one day I noticed the signs of vole feeding so I got the camera out and waited while lying on the grass absolutely still...

The vole was inches away from the camera and did not appear to notice me at all!

woodsmoke

 

[Marts]

The rules would be that it would have to be an ordinary camera lens without use of zoom.

(Pedantic photographer hat on)

I don't know what this is Rich? Is there an industry standard I don't know about

I have an ordinary camera lens that does not Zoom, but it is a 300mm lens plus my camera's digital and .effectively multiplies this to 450mm equivalent So I could fill the viewfinder with a rabbit at say 30 metres.

I have another ordinary lens that does not zoom which is 12mm so to fill the viewfinder with the rabbit I would have to be inside it.

Like the idea of the stalking challenge though. Just need to agree on the rules for argumentative photographers

 

[Butchd]

Pfft, you know very well that he meant a 50mm lens, even though that is a little bit wide angle. Don't know quite how you'd check though on other camera's. Maybe you should specify the lens when you put up the photo.

 

[madrussian]

O.K. here we go. I snuck up on this one very quietly.

Slowly I took one step at a time and stopped. Frozen like a statue.

Closer still.

And then, when the rabbit was preoccupied, I slowly made my way to its head.

I couldn't believe how close it let me get. So I tried ever so slowly to get even closer.

And then, when I least expected it, my daughter picked it up.

 

[Greg]

You Nutter!!

 

[madrussian]

I couldn't resist.

 

[British Red]

Damn thats a big bunny!

Meal for four there !


Fantastic post! You have "virtual rep"

Red

 

[madrussian]

Hey Red, we usually BBQ's rabbit after marinating it in beer, onions, garlic and spices. This one started with the beer a little early.

 

[Greg]

Thats almost as big as the in-laws dog!!!

 

[Marts]

O.K. here we go. I snuck up on this one very quietly.

As the man said. You have virtual rep.

 

[rich59]

Nice rabbit and vole pics!!

(Pedantic photographer hat on)

Oh woe is me. Oh to be a camera buff. I can check on my home camera later about settings. But what I am chiefly suggesting is the view you get from a non specialised, general use, off the peg, high street, common or garden, camera for general use like snapping your friends on holiday, and bought from a general shop where the shopping assistant just about knows which way to point it.

 

[Marts]

Nice rabbit and vole pics!!



Oh woe is me. Oh to be a camera buff. I can check on my home camera later about settings. But what I am chiefly suggesting is the view you get from a non specialised, general use, off the peg, high street, common or garden, camera for general use like snapping your friends on holiday, and bought from a general shop where the shopping assistant just about knows which way to point it.

They still sell those do they?

That means I'll have to go and buy one Rich

 

[rich59]

They still sell those do they?

That means I'll have to go and buy one Rich

OK. I may not be a camera buff, but I did do some maths in my distant past. I would propose that to standardise your camera what you need to do is post not only your wild rabbit photos but also a "calibration" shot of a standard ruler, taken face on (not angled), exactly 1 metre away from the front of the lens, taken with the same camera and the same zoom settings. That way the distance of a "standard sized rabbit" can be calculated from your rabbit photo.

Obviously if you find genuine wild giant rabbits then you have an advantage, but then I suppose they would be easier to hit with your bow/ sling or whatever, so good luck to you.

Now can you stop quibbling and get out there and shoot some rabbit?

 

[British Red]

Hey Red, we usually BBQ's rabbit after marinating it in beer, onions, garlic and spices. This one started with the beer a little early.

Sorry, but I'm still laughing at this shot - brilliant photo!