I photographed this porcupine in Colorado many years ago when I was shooting film. I used a hand held incident meter (the Sekonic L-508) back then that read the light falling onto the scene rather than the light reflecting from it. In many ways, this made exposure a lot easier, especially when dealing with a tough situation like this one. I wanted to retain some detail in the dark face and to delineate between the eye and the surrounding hair. At the same time, I didn't want to lose detail in the highlights. Retaining texture in the foreground snow was important. Using a hand held meter is still valid today even with the sophistication of digital technology, but it's slow. However, when the lighting condition doesn't change very much, you can take one reading and use it for quite a while until you notice the ambient light changing. I took this with a Mamiya RZ 67, 350mm telephoto, and a tripod. The settings were unrecorded, but I captured this with Fujicrhome Provia 100 transparency film.
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