Marula Cub

Why did I take this photo? The answer is very simple - who does not love a picture of a lion cub? Almost always on the wish lists of guests on safari at Sabi Sabi, and my guests at the time, were no exception.

We left Selati Camp a little earlier to try and get a head start and try to track the Southern Pride, however the weather threw us a curveball by unleashing a slow soft rain at 05:30 in the morning. It wasn't long before the pride was found and to our amazement, the playful cubs were climbing on a fallen over Marula tree and were doing their absolute best to maintain traction on the slippery bark.

After taking numerous pictures of this amazing scene of the cubs running up and down the tree, my eye was drawn to a little cub at the back of the tree. As it was a little younger than the others, I wasn't sure if it wanted to be excluded from the games or just left out. Given its expression, I felt that this little one was just observing, not participating but learning - stepping stones in life and picking the time and like lions, photography is always about picking the right time.

Equipment used

• Camera – Nikon D4S
• Lens and Focal length – Nikkor 200mm-400mm F4 at the full 400mm

Settings used to capture this image

• ISO 5000 – As it was still quite dark and the rainy overcast conditions, I needed to push up the ISO in order to speed up the shutter speed to freeze some of the rain drops.
• Aperture f/4 – There was a lot of foliage behind the cubs, so a shallow depth of field and maximum light was a priority.
• Shutter 1/800 – For this image, the freezing of some rain drops was important to the feel of the image.

Editing used on this image

There was not too much post processing that was needed here. It is always a goal to try and get the image right in camera, however due to the moment, wildlife photography does not always afford you the time to get it right. I process my images in Adobe Lightroom, and starting at the top, my first action is to crop the image to create the right composition. The next step was to increase the contrast slider which managed to bring out the darkness in the fallen over Marula tree which has amazing bark texture. This, coupled with an increase in the clarity, brought out the texture in the bark, dampness of the cubs fur as well as the rain drops in the background. I did not want to overdo the clarity in this image as it is important in still retaining some softness in the cub. This softness I would also be able to enhance while I tried to reduce the grain in the background by using the noise reduction slider.