I always film... Camera man or not. Usually not. I am beginning to like not haveing a camera man better. They tend to screw things up and limet your set ups. Getting right in close to big bedded bucks is hard enough alone, bring some dude into the picture and he is bound to screw something up... I have found it is very diffacult to find camera men who are not only also good hunters, good enough to keep from busting the set up you waited all year to hunt... But also in tune with me as a hunter. He needs to know when I am going to shoot, what I am going to shoot, and exactly what he needs to film... Very dissapointing to get a great hunt in, and find out the guy behind you never hit record, or had something set wrong or whatever...
I have gotten bad footage with camera men, and bad footage by myself, I have also gotten great footage without a camera man, and great footage with one. If you watched my latest hunt on Whitetail addictions TV show or Vol. #2 of there DVD I got my best footage ever for the show by self filming my hunt for a Wisc. 14 pointer, and it was voted 2nd best show of the year...
I will also say that I dissagree with most of you about cameras.... I use mainly small cheap digetal video cameras for hunting... I beat the hell out of them and go thru about 2 cameras a year. The footage is plenty good enough for my hunts to be featured on major TV shows with the small cameras and I don't have to be afgraid to run the camera in rain, snow, or whatever the waste deep swamp muck has to offer. Every time we send the GL's in it costs us a min. of $400. I can just toss the small cameras in the trash and buy a new one... And it don't take a rocket scientist to learn how to work everything...