At a panda reserve here in China, I was able to capture two young animals wrestling and playing just like small children. It was endearing to watch. We got to the reserve when they opened at 7:30am to take advantage of the best light possible. Overcast or shade is my preference for outdoor portraits -- human or animal -- and as the sun climbed higher in the sky I started to see dappled light which is usually too contrasty for a digital sensor to handle. In this picture, I was lucky to have mostly the diffused light of shade. I used the 400mm end of my 100-400mm Canon zoom plus a 1.4x teleconverter, giving me 560mm of focal length. To make sure the pandas were sharp and I didn’t get any motion blur, I shot this with a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second. The aperture was f/8, and the ISO was 400. I hand held the 1Dx Mark II.
3 Comments
Sep 12, 2017, 7:38:10 PM
Jim - Joyce -- I hand hold the lens because in many situations, a tripod is too inhibiting and it takes too long to set up. Sometimes seconds mean the difference between getting the shot and not getting it.
Thanks, Janie. Pandas are so much fun to photograph.
Sep 12, 2017, 3:22:53 PM
Joyce - Of course you hand held it!!! How do you do that?!
Sep 12, 2017, 12:16:47 PM
Janie Greene - Greeat shot Jim...I've gotten some Pandas I love from the Atlanta zoo, but your shots here are excellent...Not sure I'll try to get anything good at the zoo after seeing your beautiful photograph.