Digital Photography Tip: Shoot Many Images

This digital photograph of two fox kits was taken at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in northern Utah. I had gone there to take photographs of migrating shore birds but when I realized the gray clumps up the road were moving and they were foxes, I slowly drove closer to take advantage of this opportunity. There were actually four kits playing but the best image was of these two as they looked towards the den at their two litter mates. The sun had barely cleared the mountains so the early morning light was low and warm – ideal!

The best animal photographs are of animals doing animal things. Running, jumping, wrestling, stalking and pouncing – there were lots of good compositions so I shot nearly three hundred images. This was the best of them all. (This photograph won photo contest, so the judges agreed!)

What and Why

This photograph was taken by a Nikon D200 camera through a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200-400mm 1:4G lens with a Nikon AF-s TC-14EII teleconverter which increased the magnification by 1.4 times. I positioned my car at an angle where I could shoot through the driver’s side window (rolled down) by using a beanbag. Since the lens was zoomed to maximum magnification, I used a cable release to avoid introducing any movement to the camera. To get more than minimum depth of sharp focus, I set the aperature at f/7.1 with the camera set on aperature priority. The camera chose a shutter speed of 1/640th of a second. The ISO was 250 with no exposure compensation dialed in. Because these fox are darker than the surrounding vegetation, I used “center weighted” metering. Since the playing kits moved a lot, I set the shutter at “Continuous – high” and the focus-mode selector at “continuous”.

More Articles by: Steve Guymon, Outdoor Digital Photographer:
Digital Photography Tip: Depth of Field
Digital Photography Tip: Crop for Impact
Digital Photography Tip: Polarizing Filter
Digital Photography Tip: Finding Subjects
Digital Photography Tip: Can’t Stress this Enough Look Around
Digital Photography Tip: Look Around
Digital Photography Tip: Shoot Many Images
Digital Photography Tip: Be Ready