Last Light

My Pic of the Week is this one of Little Bush’s cub who is now just on 1 year of age and is becoming a real young lady, not independent just yet not for another 8 - 12 months.

This particular image shows how she is growing in confidence more and more as each time we see her she is becoming more relaxed than her mother and treats us to great photographic opportunities. She is a real poser as she climbs trees and rocks which is just so to speak, the "perfect" leopard shot! Here she is standing and peeking over the rock in the Msthulu Riverbed, catching the last bit of light.

Equipment used

Camera – Canon 7D MKii

Lens and focal Length - Canon 100 - 400 MKii f4.5-5.6

Settings used to capture this image

ISO 1250 - Still a lot of great light which I used spot metering on the leopard to keep my ISO down.

Aperture f/7.1 - I used this f stop to capture all the details of the leopard and had sufficient light to open my f stop wider.

Shutter Speed 1/400 – I did not need a very fast shutter speed as the leopard was not on the move or in quick motion, just fast enough to be able to make the background darker.

Editing used on this image

This image was easy to edit as it already had all that I was looking for. All I did with this image was simply convert it into Monochrome, then lift the highlight a little bit which brought out the light on the leopard and dropped the shadows creating the darkness in the background.