Wildlife Photography From Your Car

I take the majority of my wildlife photos from our Jeep, Grand Cherokee. This often entails hours of waiting for a subject to appear and the opportunity can be gone in a few minutes or seconds.

  This raises the problem of how to be ready instantly, and yet not develop arm fatigue from holding the camera constantly.  Without going into the options that others use, I will describe my own tried and proven technique...

The Puffin Pad is a closed cell foam block with cut-outs to accommodate the window glass or the door frame of most cars...

The problem with using the Puffin Pad alone is that one must still hold the camera to prevent it from falling. After some consideration I came up an inexpensive device that allows the camera to be ready at all times and requires little to no effort to use...

I used two carabiners and two bungee cord loops to hang the camera from the grab handle found in many cars today. By changing the size of the carabiners the optimum height can be obtained for each user. Normally I let the bottom of the camera and lens rest on the puffin pad. Materials for the carabiner hanger can be had for under $5.00 and found in many locations...

My Nikon D500 and Tamron 150-600mm lens weigh a combined 6.27 pounds. They feel weightless when used with the carabiner hanger and the Puffin Pad.

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