Dan Cadieux and I took a day off of work yesterday to travel the 3 hours to Ontario's Algonquin Park. As we pulled up to the visitor's centre we saw this fox moving around outside. It was early so the visitor's centre was closed but some park employees we in teh building.
We decided to try and create a few images of this fox so I parked my vehicle and we prepared to test our luck. The fox's location was close to the main building but we noticed that the fox didn't seem to frightened by us in fact it circled a bit around us. Just in case the fox decided to approach more closely we positioned ourselves to have no building or vehicles in the way.
In fact the fox did approach us. We did not lure it with food but we believe that it may have been fed by humans before.
In any event I managed this full frame portrait. Just some light exposure adjustment. I would have preferred better eye contact but he was looking at Dan at the time. I may lighten the fox's left eye but overall I was pleased with this one.
Canon EOS 40D & Sigma 50-500mm at 500mm handheld at 1/250 seconds, F 7.1, ISO 640.
Last edited by Stephen Stephen; 03-17-2010 at 11:43 AM.
Reason: corrected typos
Really nice Stephen It is a treat having them so close and cooperative !!!
Excellent detail and sure got a pleasing bg, might have tried a vertical? The eyes you can select and tweak a bit, would like a little bit lighter !!! Excellent portrait !!!
This guy was indeed a very nice surprise first thing in the morning! Funny also how it suddenly fled after a few minutes for no apparant reason (other that we had no food for it!!:)). Maybe it was because of the excitement, but I seem to recall it a little more vivid on the orange coat...a slight boost in saturation would work nicely. Great job on the exposure and sharpness.
I'd be pleased with this one too, and I can't wait to post-process mine:D.
Alfred as Dan will attest this fox moved around fairly quickly. I originally had the camera mounted on my BushHawk but I couldn't switch between landscape and portrait formats quickly enough at the same time as zooming in and out. I had just done a quick release when he came in this close* so I took what I could get.
* I wish that I had this complaint more often! :D;)
Dan I agree about the coat colour and I'll try and adjust. When I look at the rest of my images though it's really the back of the neck and shoulders that have the really dark orange colour. The face and forehead are much paler.
I've tried to incorporate everyone's comments into the modified version. I've added some canvas at teh top to try for a more vertical image but because I can't really add something to the bottom it's more a square presentation instead.
Dan I agree about the zoom. I do have a couple at a shorter focal length but this fox was approachable but perhaps almost too approachable, at least too quickly. ;)