Stealth Mode

Stealth Mode

 

I find it a lot of fun to try to capture animals’ traits in my wildlife photography – whether the traits are of a species as a whole or else an individual’s. Here I am of course paying homage to the leopard’s stealth and stalking skills.

This particular leopard is Fig, a beautiful female who lives in the Olare Motorogi Conservancy bordering the Masai Mara in Kenya.

I am particularly happy that during this trip the Mara was quite green. I usually always travel in the dry season, resulting in a lot of brownish photos. The splash of green is a welcome change to my portfolio!

If you are wondering about my choice of camera settings: I took a bit of a risk here with the slowish shutter speed, but I wanted to capture the paw movement while still keeping the face acceptably sharp. The Canon 5d Mark III would have easily allowed me to bump up the ISO a bit more for a faster shutter speed, but in this case I decided that is not what I wanted.

Techs: Canon 5D Mark III | Canon EF 200-400 f4 L IS USM Extender 1.4x @ 560mm | f 5.6 | 1/250s | ISO 400.