Baby action

The image that I worked on the hardest when photographing the snub-nosed monkeys here in China was the babies at play. They were so funny and so entertaining that I wanted to capture some of their comedic antics. The challenge was that they moved unbelievably fast, and they never stayed in one pose for more than a tiny fraction of a second. Even at 14 frames per second, the jumble of arms and legs, the turn of their heads away from the camera, and busy backgrounds all made it extremely difficult. Over the course of three days, though, I finally got a few pictures I like. My settings for this shot were 1/1250, f/7.1, and 10,000 ISO, and I used a 100-400mm Canon zoom. In this past, when we all shot film and 400 ISO was considered very fast -- but grainy -- and 3200 ISO was essentially unusable unless you liked giant sized grain, this picture in this kind of low light situation where the monkeys are sharp would have been impossible. It's a great time to be a photographer.