Joe's Photos

A busy week in Joe's back yard, what with the baby owl dropping out of the nest and the red fox kit stopping by every night at 5:30 for supper tidbits.
For you photographers out there, the owl was shot with a Nikon D3 with a AF 105mm f2.8 macro lens. Setting were 1/250 @ f8.0, ISO 2200.
The fox kit was shot from a blind using the "trap-focus" method (and his favorite food on the outcrop).

The trap focus method allows you to set up your equipment and walk away and check back, in this case about 45 minutes to review the captures.

The procedure is this. Open the MENU, CUSTOM SETTING MENU, AUTOFOCUS, AF-C PRIORITY, ans select FOCUS ONLY.

Next, open CUSTOM SETTING MENU, AUTOFOCUS, AUTOFOCUS ON BUTTON, several options--choose AF-ON.(to focus now, you use your right thumb on the AF-ON button. This disables the focusing capability of the shutter release button.

Attach the electronic remote shutter release (10-pin connector) for the D3.

Position the camera/tripod so that the subject will fill the frame and create good composition. Position one of the focus/meter blocks in the view finder where the subject's eye would be. In this case I selected a focus block in the bottom row of the view finder, and placing it on the outcrop (same distance as the hidden food), I hit the AF-ON button. Without moving the camera, I moved the active focus block in the view finder to the eye level of the fox. I set the continuous drive to low and selected one second intervals...higher speeds are noisy and frighten the animals while one per second makes them curious.

With the camera turned on and focused at a point in space, I activated the remote trigger and waited for something to not only be "right down the gun barrel" but to be in perfect focus.

EQUIPMENT: NIKON D3, AF 300mm with 1.4 teleconverter, tripod with ball head and quick release, Pocket Wizard transceiver and 10-pin connector cable, and blind. Exposure was 1/250 @f5.6, ISO 2200. No flash.