#BehindTheShot with #CanonExplorerOfLight @dorn.bruce: “Nature photography is a game of timing, skill, and luck!
‘F8 and be there,’ as the old saying goes, is foundational but if you aren’t lucky in terms of time-and-place, well, you’ll probably end up with a whole lot of nothing. In the case of this image, serendipity (and the thoughtful placement of my safari car) added up to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for myself and one of my safari clients…
It was November of 2006 and we were in the Okavango Delta. Both my guest and I were shooting with then-current and top-of-the-line Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III bodies and we both had our Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS USM super-telephotos equipped with 1.4 teleconverters. This combination gave us effective focal lengths of 840 millimeters — perfect for in-your-face action without being so physically close to the cats that we might begin to affect their natural behaviors.
This pride’s territory is flooded for a substantial portion of each year and new cubs must learn to swim shortly after they learn to walk. Spotting this lioness and one of her sisters approaching a water crossing, we calculated their intended path and positioned ourselves directly across a water channel they would need to navigate.
Positioning our car perpendicular to the cats’ trajectory, I flopped my sandbag over the camera car’s low rear door sill and nestled my camera into place. This uncomfortably low camera position wouldn’t allow easy access to the viewfinder but it did give me an almost perfect lion-eye-level point-of-view. With our Drive Modes set to High Speed, AF on AI Servo, and our apertures cranked wide-open to F/5.6, I suggested ISO 400 and a shutter-speed of 1/1600. We were ready!
And then she came. While we might have pushed the shutter release at slightly different milliseconds and our cameras might have run at slightly different speeds we both caught this precise moment from slightly different angles.
Being in the right place at the right time – and having appropriate equipment — is everything!”
📸 #Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
Lens: EF 600mm f/4L IS USM
Ciao, Nihon.