I used to be delighted to interview high wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas at this yr’s Sony World Images Awards, after he scooped the highest Wildlife Class prize for his ‘Crossing Level’ collection.
His beautiful and extremely detailed photographs had been captured over a 6-month interval and supplied very important knowledge on Kenya’s iconic Masai Mara Nationwide Park’s wildlife to native companies. The park’s rangers had been surprised by a number of the discoveries, all captured utilizing Burrard-Lucas’ distinctive, self-developed digital camera entice system.
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‘The place a variety of mirrorless cameras fall down’
You would possibly count on the collection to have been captured with probably the greatest mirrorless cameras. Burrard-Lucas does certainly primarily use Sony gear for wildlife pictures within the discipline. Nonetheless, for his distant digital camera traps used on this successful collection, his gear decisions had been altogether completely different.
Burrard-Lucas’ digital camera traps are primarily based on his personal ‘Camtraptions’ gadgets, particularly a extremely superior movement sensor for wired or wi-fi operation. He wirelessly paired the movement sensor with a full-frame Canon EOS 6D DSLR digital camera (fitted with a 35mm lens). That is proper, a 14-year-old, enthusiast-level DSLR.
Given their age, and like many of the greatest DSLRs, you possibly can solely choose up EOS 6D’s second-hand now, with ‘glorious situation’ fashions costing round $400 / £350 at main retailers.
The truth that these outdated DSLRs are low-cost is a part of the attraction for Burrard-Lucas, due to the variety of digital camera traps he units up and the cruel environments he usually works in — there’s an actual price to efficiency consideration. He advised me he wanted reasonably priced, “dependable and strong” gear with glorious low-light picture high quality, and the EOS 6D match the invoice.
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Wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas standing by his SWPA 2026-winning pictures on the contest’s exhibition in Somerset Home, London(Picture credit score: Future / Tim Coleman)And a number of pictures from his ‘Crossing Level’ collection(Picture credit score: © Will Burrard-Lucas)And his DSLR digital camera of alternative, the Canon EOS 6D
Even so, there’s really a technical benefit to older DSLRs. Good lighting was essential to the collection, particularly since most of the species being tracked are usually nocturnal and shy, similar to rhinos, so Burrard-Lucas wanted to make use of flash.
Burrard-Lucas advised me, “Any outdated DSLR digital camera works rather well within the digital camera entice setup — it [the camera] must work nicely with flash, which is the place a variety of mirrorless cameras fall down.”
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The composition you see in his ‘Crossing Level’ collection was determined initially, with the movement sensor positioned to set off the digital camera when the animal walked into the precise a part of the body (which Burrard-Lucas manually targeted the digital camera’s lens on), and the digital camera remotely triggered three flash weapons to light up the topic and fast lush environment.
On condition that composition and focus are chosen forward of time, there was no need for Burrard-Lucas to choose a top-spec digital camera with main burst taking pictures speeds and autofocus efficiency. His gear alternative was decided by picture high quality necessities, reliability, and affordability, and the EOS 6D was his choose.
Burrard-Lucas recurrently works utilizing digital camera traps, and they’re positioned the place they’re liable to harm from wildlife. Due to this fact, he advised me that each time he sees low-cost “outdated secondhand DSLRs, I snap them up”.
Any outdated DSLR digital camera works rather well within the digital camera entice setup — it [the camera] must work nicely with flash, which is the place a variety of mirrorless cameras fall down.
Will Burrard-Lucas
Once I requested about his use of digital camera traps, Burrard-Lucas mentioned, “for nocturnal creatures, there’s nothing higher than digital camera traps, as a result of actually it comes all the way down to lighting.
“For these elusive animals, a photographer may wait 12 hours, however you possibly can’t wait 4 months, so it is the one sensible approach while you’ve obtained this outlined focus.”
I’ve determined to provide Burrard-Lucas’ digital camera entice system a go for myself, and he suggested me, “It is tremendous simple, and so many individuals are making new use of their outdated DSLR digital camera. You do not want a variety of extra equipment; the sensor, a single flash to start out with, maintain issues easy and depart it out for a number of nights.”
Burrard-Lucas sells each merchandise wanted for his picture award-winning system apart from the digital camera itself on his Camtraptions web site, the place additionally, you will discover a way more detailed how-to.
I can not say I will be photographing something as thrilling as a rhino or a leopard, nevertheless it’ll be nice to mud off my outdated Nikon DSLR and provides it a brand new objective, and I can not wait to see what kind of nocturnal wildlife visits my countryside backyard. Hopefully, I am going to share a number of the greatest photographs quickly.
You possibly can see extra of the ‘Crossing Level’ mission photographs on the World Photograph Organisation web site.
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