Animals are like kids – it’s a major challenge to get a good photograph of them. When I got this photo for “Hey Baby!” I must have shot almost 200 photos. Either he wasn’t positioned right, or he moved just as I clicked the shutter, the lighting didn’t highlight him right or I screwed up and used the wrong ISO or lens, or I used aperature priority when I should have used auto. Then of course, you can’t tell a fiddler crab “come on baby, work we me, yeah, flick your hair, turn, smile….” And of course, the times he was in perfect position waving his claw, I was just in the middle of something else with no camera handy and by the time I grabbed the tripod and set up the camera, he was doing something else. Suffice it to say tt was a major challenge getting one shot that he looked good in that was in focus, lit right etc.
I kept wishing I could have put my camera in the tank but too distracting and upsetting for Admiral Byrd and too awkward for me….not to mention I didn’t have one of those waterproof housings and my camera was too big for the tank.
I would have loved one of those smaller cameras you can just set up – a “fiddler cam.” Ultimately that is the answer to good pics I think….at least in terms of spontaneity and not upsetting him, but who knows if the kind of cam I could afford would focus well etc.
However, when I saw the following video I didn’t feel so bad. If professionals could have problems, I guess I didn’t do so bad. What I encountered was nothing compared to what the BBC group photographing polar bears went through, and they even had robotic cameras… For your viewing pleasure: Polar Bear video
I’ll just stick to fiddler crabs…. 🙂 have a nice day.
Tags: Admiral Byrd, BBC professional photographer, bear, camera, crab, fiddler, fiddler cam, fiddler crab, Hey Baby!, kids' photographs, polar bear, robotic camera, robots, video-cam
Soul Mosaic 
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