richardschneider
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo at Parc Omega in Montobello, Quebec, Canada. Parc Omega is a drive through safari style wildlife park with most of the animals roaming free outside of the predators like Foxes, Wolves, Bears and Coyotes. You can feed Elk and Deer from your car window.Time
We arrived at the park just after lunch that day so around 1pm. It was super bright that day!Lighting
Due to the time of day and the glare off the snow it made for some tricky shooting. Trying to not overexpose by using a decent shutter speed and a narrow aperture were called for. I also had to be quick on the draw as this Artic Foxes reaction was really fast and unexpected.Equipment
My go to camera is the Nikon D800E for it's awesome dynamic range and it's high resolution shots it can produce. The lens that captured this photo is the Nikon 70-200, 2.8, VR2 lens. I was also off and on using a Nikon TC-17E II teleconverter to get tighter shots of Wolves and this Fox.Inspiration
This shot had me so thrilled! I had been to Parc Omega many times and had only ever seen one Arctic Fox and it was usually sleeping. This shot is actually a crop and the Fox is reacting to another what looked like much younger Fox coming up behind it! It was so much fun and I was so happy to have had the camera shooting in continuous high mode so I could rattle off a lot of shots. This shot still makes me smile. I love nature and I love the fierceness the Fox is showing!Editing
I did have to decrease the exposure a bit as my shutter speed wasn't fast enough so the shots did overexpose a bit! Also the background was causing the white balance to shift from shot to shot. So I adjusted the white balance to my liking. As mentioned before I did crop the shot as I was more happy with the feel of the Fox alone and the question of what it's reacting to.In my camera bag
Normally in my photo bag I have the D800E or a Nikon D7200. I use prime lenses a lot so I'll have as much as 3 primes in the bag and they are a 20mm, 50mm and a 85mm all f/1.8. If I know I'll need flash I'll take one or two with Pocketwizards for off camera flash work. For photographing nature it's the Nikon D7200 and the aforementioned 70-200 with teleconverter and the 20mm 1.8g for any landscape shots I come across. For gigs I pack along a couple soft boxes and light stands.Feedback
For a shot like this, do practice shots to get a baseline exposure of what you want to shoot and then tweak the exposure as desired. Mainly make sure to have your settings straight and be ready to shoot because wildlife happens fast!