Against this background, it is understandable that I get pretty frustrated with the poor quality of deer photos people send me and want me to put up on Deerfarmer.com or on their website. Deer, and especially whitetail and mule deer, are among the most beautiful of nature's animals. All people love looking at photographs of deer. (It is the third most popular section on Deerfarmer.com, after Classifieds and Discussion Forum). Also, a good quality picture of a deer will help you sell its offspring or semen.

So here are some suggestions to help you get the best pictures possible of your deer.

1. Use the right equipment. Any name brand 35mm SLR camera will work fine. The key is to ensure the camera has a quality lens that will provide sharp, clear and vivid images. Avoid the cheap "instamatic" cameras as the quality of their images are not very good. I have received some pretty good photographs taken by the new digital cameras. However, overall, that technology is still not at a stage where it compares to 35mm camera.

2. Get the light right. The best environment to take a picture of a deer is on a slightly overcast day. Bright sunlight creates too much contrast and shadows. Pictures taken in the late evening when it is getting dark don't come out too well. Flash doesn't work well unless you have several units (as in a studio) to get rid of the shadows. Today's films are pretty forgiving but it is important to get the right exposure. I personally don't like the automatic cameras because they rarely get the light right. I prefer to set the shutter speed and exposure manually. Don't be afraid to bracket - take one picture at what you believe to be the best exposure, then take another picture at 1 f-stop above and 1 f-stop below. It is nearly impossible to get the proper exposure when photographing in winter. The white snow creates havoc with exposure. Stick to spring, summer and fall to take your pictures. (Besides, what is there to photograph in deer in the winter?)

3. Choose the right angle. Take a look of the photographs taken of other livestock. It usually is a side shot showing the whole body. Yes, antlers are the exciting and most interesting part of a deer, but buyers will want to see the rest of the deer as well. If you are photographing deer in your fields or pens, try and get as close as you can, or use a telephoto lens. I can't do much with a picture of a tiny deer in a great big field. If I enlarge it, I lose the quality. Try and get a clean background. Don't photograph a big buck in a pile of trees where his antlers blend with the background. Ugly fences don't make good backgrounds either. A good tip is to kneel or lay down and shoot upward so that the sky forms the background. Yes, I can electronically remove the background, but it is a lot of work.

4. Focus. I want to make two key points here. First, I get many fuzzy pictures where someone did not focus the camera properly. Again, I don't like the automatic focus cameras because they may be focusing on something other than the deer. Focus on the part of the deer nearest to you. The other issue is "depth of field." With a 35mm SLR you can control the depth of field or region that is in focus. You should have a depth of field sufficient so that all the deer is in focus. Often I get pictures with the nose in focus, and the rest blurry. Knowing about the depth of field also allows you to deliberately blur the background. It is a great strategy to remove unwanted backgrounds. Setting your f-stop at f5.6 or f8 usually gives you adequate depth of field while blurring out the background. Anything higher (e.g., f11 or f16) will put the entire picture in focus (useful if you are photographing a whole herd of deer for example). Most better cameras have a preview button for depth of field. Use it to select the best settings for the picture you want. Of course, the higher the f-stop, the lower the shutter speed. Try and keep your shutter speed above 1/60 of a second to avoid blurring due to movement.

5. Scan and save in the right format. With the Internet, photographs are scanned, posted and displayed electronically. I find that a good quality photograph is a joy to scan. Even though many tools are available for enhancing scanned images, there is only so much you can do with a poor quality original. If you are scanning for use on the Internet, you should scan at a resolution of 72 to 100 dpi. Higher resolutions won't be noticeable on most monitors anyway, and it will keep the file size down. When you scan, be sure to export the file to a *jpg format. This is the standard for photographs on the Internet. Also, if you are sending anyone a photo attached to an e-mail, use this format. Any other format results in a huge file size and takes forever to send.

If all this sounds too complicated for you, hire a professional photographer. You need quality deer photographs for your brochures, catalogues, displays and websites if your marketing efforts are to be successful.