Morning folks — in this video I finally have a proper go at photographing badgers, and I’m doing it the way that actually gives you printable, high-quality images: a proper camera trap setup rather than just trailcam footage. Badgers have been a bit of a nemesis species for me over the years because they’re nocturnal and they always seem to pop out right on the edge of darkness, when even fast glass is struggling. The difference here is we’ve got them coming through the garden, so it’s the perfect chance to dial in a repeatable setup and start progressing the shots. I run through the core kit you need and how it all talks to each other: an older DSLR (I’m using a Nikon D610), a simple zoom (55–200 is plenty for this), two flashes, and a PIR trigger. The trigger fires the camera on one channel, while the transmitter on the camera fires the flashes on another, so everything stays in sync. Then it’s all about the practical field stuff: pick the shot first, place the camera, build your light (main + fill), narrow the PIR beam, pre-focus on a target, and keep flash power sensible (I’m at 1/16th) so you’re not blasting the subject. Next morning we check the card, and I take one of the better frames into DxO to do a quick, gentle edit — I’m not into overprocessing. A bit of highlight control, a touch of micro-contrast, and backing off the greens is about all it needed. Result: my first genuinely decent badger image, and plenty more to come.