This is a giant river otter I photographed in the Pantanal region of Brazil. I used a Canon 500mm f/4 telephoto, and with the animal swimming toward my boat, every millisecond the focus changed. I was very impressed with how fast the autofocus responded to that movement. I took this with the Canon 5D Mark III in 2014; now the AF in my Canon R5 is significantly faster and more precise. My settings were 1/2000, f/11, and the auto ISO gave me 800. Some of the boats in the Pantanal are outfitted with Gimbal tripod heads, and while these are smooth in their movements and they take the weight of the camera and lens off your shoulders and arms, they are too inhibiting for me. When a bird is in flight or an animal is swimming in the river, I need maximum freedom of movement in composing a shot in a split second.
0 Comments