How To Film Your Hunt

Keep reading to learn about how to film your hunt.

With the proliferation of inexpensive and easy to use video equipment, it is becoming more and more common to see hunters film their own hunts. The days are gone where only the extremely wealthy or people with their own hunting shows could film their hunts. I wouldn’t say that filming your hunt is easy, but it is probably not nearly as difficult of expensive as you would think. Read on to learn how to film your hunt.

Get A Friend To Help

Perhaps the simplest way to film your hunt is to get a friend to help you out. This method has several advantages. It is a very inexpensive and simple way to film your hunt. You can also use any camera ranging in quality from a cell phone up to a very high end video camera.

However, this method really restricts the amount of hunting your friend can do. At the same time, the quality of your video can vary widely depending on the quality of your camera and how good a photographer your friend is.

The video below was filmed by a friend of mine with a basic Sony camcorder. He simply stood behind me and looked over my shoulder with the camera. The video is not very steady, he jumps at the shot, and the tree partially blocks part of the video frame. However, it didn’t cost us anything to make, was very easy to put together, and we still ended up with a decent quality hunting video.

Mount The Camera Nearby

This method is great if you’re hunting on your own from a fixed position, such as a tree stand or a ground blind. Depending on your exact situation, you may want to mount the camera on a nearby tree, on your stand itself, or even on a tripod sitting on the ground. This has the advantage of eliminating most, if not all of the shaking in a video and unless you mount the camera on your shooting rest or the muzzle blast from your rifle upsets the camera, this is a good way to get a good quality impact shot.

However, using a mounted the camera by yourself can get a little complicated. For best results, you probably should to turn on, aim, zoom, and focus your camera right at the beginning of the hunt. This really only works well when you have a really good idea of where the animal will be when you take the shot, such as at a bait site. Otherwise, getting the camera ready while at the same time getting ready to actually take your shot can get a little hectic leading to a missed shot, poor quality video, or even scaring the animal away with excess noise and movement.

I took the video below on a bear hunt last year using a tripod mounted camera in my ground blind. I set up everything when I got there and was fortunate that the bear was in the camera frame when I took the shot. This was only possible because I was hunting over a bait site and the bear was directly in front of me.

Use A Body Mounted Camera

Another good way to film your hunt is by using some sort of body or gun mounted camera. Solvid makes an inexpensive head camera mount that will accept either a traditional video camera or an action camera. You can also mount a camera somewhere else, such as on your gun or bow. Generally speaking, a body mounted camera won’t be very steady and you probably won’t be able to zoom in on the animal. However, it does provide a POV perspective and can help a viewer get a better feel for what the hunt was actually like.

The two videos video below was filmed using the same Sony camera as the two previous clips. However, I mounted the camera on a Solvid head camera mount. They were very simple and inexpensive to film and I ended up with a good video from each one that did a good job of showing what the hunt was like. However, both films show one of the problems with using a body mounted camera: making sure the camera is pointed in exactly the right direction.

Get A Professionally Made Video

Hiring a professional to film your hunt isn’t cheap, but it’s a great way to get a really high quality video of your hunt. If you get professional help, you don’t need to actually own a camera or even know anything about filming or editing. By hiring a professional you can then focus on hunting while safe in the knowledge that someone is taking good quality video of your hunt. Most professional videographers will film the hunt all day, edit the film at night, and then give you a DVD of your hunt on the last day of your trip to take home with you.

The video below was filmed in South Africa by a professional and some people have even gone as far as to say that it’s the best Africa hunting video they’ve ever seen.

The guy who filmed the video used a drone to take aerial shots, added music to the video, and just generally good knowledge base about how to make a good hunting video. Notice how the camera doesn’t shake and how the subject of each video shot is always in focus? In Africa, a professional videographer will cost a couple hundred dollars a day, so it isn’t cheap by any means. However, you do get what you pay for. So, if you don’t mind spending the extra money, this is a great way to get a truly epic video of your hunt.

Here is one last thing to keep in mind when you film a hunt: make sure you are a good ambassador for hunting when you do so. You should never break the law or behave unethically while hunting. However, taking video of yourself doing something illegal, unethical, or in bad taste is just asking for trouble. If you decide to film your hunt, make 100% certain that you are behaving like a model hunter. Otherwise, you are asking to be the subject of a hunting scandal and may even open yourself up to criminal penalties if you film yourself doing something illegal.

As you can see, there are several different ways to film your hunt. There is also nothing saying you can’t combine different methods of filming your hunt. For instance, you can mount an action camera on your rifle while your friend also films using a tripod mounted camera. In this manner, you can get a couple of different perspectives in the same video. This is a great way to make an outstanding video of your hunt.

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