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Canon 1DX Autofocus

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Montana Birds
Montana Wood Duck, Canon 1DX

The other day I finally had to peel my eyeballs off the computer monitor and take a break from seemingly endless days of photo editing. Whenever I need a quick break to recharge and clear me eyes, the local duck pond is usually where I head just down the road from my house.
On this evening we had the last of our winter storm lingering with some pretty cold temps, but nice evening light. I shot this image at about -15f while laying out on the ice to get eye level with some of the ducks.

One thing that I have been increasingly impressed with is the Canon 1DX’s quick reaction time when using multi-point autofocus. In this case I had my multi-points right on the wood duck anticipating his lift off and in a split second having to move the camera to keep up, hoping my autofocus points would follow along on the duck and keep focus. This would be a case with some systems where it would be hit or miss, but the 1DX continues to impress me with its accurate and blazingly quick reaction times. Looking forward to more birds this spring with the 1DX!

Canon 1DX 100-400mm 4.5-5.6L IS  f8  1/2000 ISO16000

Montana Mallards

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Mallard Landing.©Jason Savage

Well we’re almost there. Rounding that last corner down the homestretch straight out of winter. It’s so close, but yet so far away….

That’s at least how I felt last Sunday as I was getting pounded by a fierce early spring snowstorm. Boy was that cold!

I was heading to Freezeout Lake last Sunday but due to one nasty storm I didn’t quite make it. The roads and visibility were so bad, getting decent shots of snow geese would have been a pointless venture.

So I decided to pack it up and head back to Helena, where I spent most of the day freezing my butt off to get some shots of some Mallard ducks near town.

Mallard Snowstorm.©Jason Savage

With adverse weather conditions, sometimes it’s much easier to spend the day admiring it from behind a window in your warm home, rather than embracing the drudgery. But with all adversity, there always seems to be a silver lining. Weather included.

I find more often than not that the extreme conditions can not only ad a dramatic mood to your image, but it can offer amazing backdrops and certain elements that you normally would never be able to capture in ideal conditions.

Wigeon Drake.©Jason Savage

With that being said, did I spend all day standing out in a wet heavy snowstorm for some of the aforementioned benefits added to my images. Well, maybe not, but any day out photographing Montana, beats sitting at home watching it out the window.