Photo by Tig Tillinghast
To photograph this red fox and her five kits near his home in Thetford, Vermont, without disrupting the animals, Tig Tillinghast relied on high magnification. This is one of several images he captured throughout one spring, using a 600mm f/4 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. He cropped this image to 1/6th of the original size. Taken on the 45 megapixel Canon R5 camera at f/5.6 aperture and ISO 1600 (two-thirds of a stop below normal exposure), the settings allowed only a 1/200th shutter speed – a typical wildlife photography compromise between high shutter speed for sharpness and low ISO for image quality. The silent electronic shutter allowed 20 shots in a brief burst, with only two of those showing critical focus.