This is one of the largest bull caribous I have ever seen! This was from my fall trip to Denali National Park.
I often get questions about the settings I use for a particular image. I’ll try to get better at including that information as it can be valuable for learning.
Here I had my Canon 7D with a 70-200 f/2.8 lens and 2x converter. Great combination for hiking because of its light weight. On this day we climbed way up into the hills and I was glad I wasn’t packing a large telephoto. I shot this at f/5.6 and 1/640 of a second at ISO 800. I prefer a lower iso with the 7D, but needed the shutter speed.
I was using aperture priority mode and had dialed up + 2 2/3 of a stop in additional compensation. If that sounds like a lot of compensation, it is. The bright sky really fools the camera, and I didn’t want a perfectly exposed rich blue sky with a silhouette, I wanted detail in the caribou. So I dialed up compensation until I had detail in the caribou and didn’t worry about blowing out the sky. Now as soon as the caribou came off the ridge and had and earth background, I had to quickly dial the compensation back down to zero. That is something very easy to do with the big wheel on the back of many Canon cameras, I can do it very quickly without looking. It is something I have even practiced so that it is second nature. I think being able to quickly adjust camera settings on the fly is really important when photographing wildlife in constantly changing light and environmental conditions.
Comments 4
This photo – and your technical details – all show what it is to be an expert photographer. Then you have that something extra…
Author
Thanks Noella!
The technical details you’re providing are extremely helpful.
Author
Thanks Scott.