The mountains of Japan get a lot of snow in the winter. Temperatures are quite cold, and the Japanese macaques -- AKA snow monkeys -- take advantage of natural hot springs to keep warm all winter. I led a photo tour to Japan in 2015, and this was one of the highlights. Photographing them from water-level is the best strategy because the low angled images look so intimate. The monkeys are quite close, so a long lens isn't needed. In fact, they are accustomed to tourists, and in one instance a baby ran along the rocks surrounding the hot pool and used my telephoto lens as a stepping stone! My settings were 1/500, f/9, and 800 ISO. I used a 70-200mm lens for this shot.
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