This past winter and now early spring we have been blessed with some really amazing lion action. Recently one of our resident prides brought down at least 3 buffalo and again this morning they are in pursuit of the large breeding herd that was watering at the pan in front of Bush Lodge at dawn.

So often when it gets dark we think that it's time to pack the camera away. This is not true and you can get some wonderful photos just using the light from the tracker's spotlights. I know I have written about this a few times in the past but last week I was able to put this method into practice again and got this fantastic image of a lion cub sitting high up on a buffalo looking at the remains of the dead buffalo's jaw. With the Land Rover opposite me shining light onto the cub I was able to back or rim light the animal. Some of the light also spilled onto the jawbones of the buffalo, thus creating an interesting composition. When taking pictures like this you need your camera to be in manual mode because on automatic it will not do what you want it to do. I used the following settings: ISO is set on 1600, the aperture is on about f5.6 and the shutter speed is on 1/250 of a second. Then it's just a case of taking lots of frames, looking at the results and making adjustments either way.

Happy snapping

Rod Wyndham

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