Rate my Photo
This wintery scene asks a lot of one reader’s camera exposure skills, but she’s made a success of it
Extremes of heat and cold
Our reader Kory Bumgardner
This is a captive Arctic fox that I photographed on a wildlife workshop in Montana. It was a beautiful day with lots of snow and sun. With three different foxes to photograph, I decided I wanted to focus on one at a time. I used my Nikon D850 with the 70-200mm lens at 185mm, and an exposure of 1/1,250 sec at f/5 and ISO 320. These guys move so fast that they are quite tricky to photograph, but I was so happy when he turned toward me and got this shot. I wanted to give him plenty of room to breathe within the frame.
Our expert Andrew James
What a great shot and – captive animals or not – still a tricky one to get right because you have several difficult things to deal with here: the fast-moving fox and the near-white environment and subject. But you have got it right.
For starters, your focus is right on the eyes of the fox – and importantly, he is giving you direct and engaging eye contact, which I love. Second, your metering and exposure is excellent. I’m assuming you dialled in at least one stop of plus exposure compensation to stop those white tones looking dull and grey. I think a fraction more detail in the snow would have been good, but it still works very well.
You’ve given the subject room to breathe, but the framing is a fraction too bold. I applaud your choice to leave a lot of space and show the environment, but I think a letterbox crop feels more balanced.