OUR APPRENTICE says…
For this tight portrait of a crocodile basking in the sun [above], I took Lou’s advice about setting a high ISO, and used it to get the depth of field I needed. I set an aperture of f/11 in aperture-priority mode to ensure there would be enough depth of field to get the crocodile as sharp as possible from front to back. I also dialed in a stop of negative exposure compensation, as otherwise the dark background would have been rendered as an average midtone, and the highlights in the croc would have started to blow out. At ISO800 this gave me a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec – not quite as fast as I’d have liked on Lou’s 600mm f/4, but I didn’t want to push the ISO any higher – and thanks to the gimbal heads mounted on Lou’s boat, it was just about fast enough [see Killer Kit #02 and #03, and page 124 for more on gimbal heads]. I love the way the strong side-lighting brings out the texture of the croc’s skin, and helps lift it off the darker background.