Animals in temperate regions of the world are their most beautiful in the winter. They are in prime condition. Red foxes in the summer are scruffy and ragged looking, but in mid-winter their coats are luxurious. I photographed this one on a frozen pond during one of my winter workshops in Montana. These canines are extremely hard to capture well, even in captivity, because they are constantly in motion. They're so fast, and it seems like they never hold a pose for more than a quarter of a second . . . maybe. I took this with my first serious digital camera in 2007 -- the 1Ds Mark II -- and I purposely kept the ISO low to minimize noise. On this camera, 1600 ISO was virtually unusable. So, the 1/250th shutter speed should have been faster to freeze the frenetic moves of the red fox, but I was afraid of the noise and we didn't have good noise-reducing programs back then. The ISO I used here was 200. Today, I would have used 1000 ISO so the shutter could have been 1/1000th of a second. My lens here was a 70-200mm, and the aperture was f/4.5.
4 Comments
Dec 16, 2018, 2:52:07 PM
Jim - Thank you, Janie.
Dec 16, 2018, 1:03:48 PM
Janie Greene - How beautiful!!!! Thanks! Janie Greene
Dec 15, 2018, 1:02:09 PM
Bob Vestal - H Jim. Have not had enough time to fully appreciate your recent blogs and photos, but will get back to them. However, had to take time for this one. So beautiful and looks like 1/250th was fast enough. Looks perfectly sharp to me.
Dec 15, 2018, 12:36:52 PM
Jim - Hi Bob, In this instance, I got lucky and froze the fast moving fox. But I prefer to have insurance -- a faster shutter just in case.