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Camera With Altitude for Wilderness Site Monitoring
The first system (figure 3) consists of two hiking staffs, a monopod, and a digital camera. This system adds just 3 lb to a wilderness ranger's pack, assuming the ranger would have been hiking with the staff anyway. The second system, which is heavier but less expensive, uses an extendable fiberglass painting pole and a camera.
Figure 3—Hiking staffs specially configured to support
a camera with altitude
for site monitoring.
No matter which system is used to document changes over time, photographs must be taken from the same place, showing the same scene under conditions that are as nearly identical as possible. The exact location where such a photograph is taken is known as a photopoint. Each of the photos taken in different years is known as a replicate. Replicate photographs can show dramatic changes in a landscape, or a lack of changes, even when the original photo was not taken with that goal in mind. (See Smith and Arno, 1999, Eighty-eight Years of Change in a Managed Ponderosa Pine Forest, RMRS-GTR-23, available from the National Technical Information Service, PB99-151805, http://www.intis.gov)
A 4-megapixel digital camera can take pictures that record enough detail to be useful for monitoring. Set the camera at its highest possible settings. For example, the highest resolution for the camera tested, the Canon PowerShot G3, is large (2,272 by 1,704 pixels) with superfine compression. The highest possible settings produce the highest-resolution photographs, but use more memory on the camera's memory chip.
When buying a digital camera, choose one that has an optional wireless remote shutter release. You will need to use the remote shutter release to fire the camera when it's 14 ft above you.
Always treat each original photograph as a negative. Keep the unaltered original photograph for its documentary value by copying it onto a CD or the home unit's server. Do not manipulate the original photograph in any way. If you copy the unaltered original photograph to an archival medium, the extra information attached to the digital photograph will remain intact. This information includes camera settings such as the focal length, ISO speed (the digital camera's sensitivity to light), and shutter exposure-everything needed to replicate the photo in the future.
Use the imaging software provided with your camera to rename your photograph and add additional comments in the photograph's header. When a digital photograph has been opened and manipulated by zooming, rotating, or any other option, the information in the header can be lost forever. Instead of manipulating the original, manipulate a copy.
Get to know your camera and how to adjust and read the settings. Read the manual and experiment with the camera before conducting any monitoring work.
The photo manipulation software that comes with the Canon PowerShot G3 is similar to software that comes with most digital cameras. One software application, PhotoStitch, is especially useful. This feature allows you to stitch together several overlapping photographs taken from the same photopoint to create one panoramic photograph.
Wilderness managers and rangers "gather information and carry out research in a manner compatible with preserving the wilderness environment to increase understanding of wilderness ecology, wilderness uses, management opportunities, and visitor behavior" as established by the Forest Service directives in FSM 2320.2.
Photographs are just one means of documenting wilderness site conditions. For more information on monitoring techniques, consult Wilderness Campsite Monitoring Methods: A Sourcebook, by David N. Cole, 1989. (USDA Forest Service Intermountain Research Station, General Technical Report INT-259, http://www.leopold.wilderness.net/pubs/179.pdf)
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