The Elusive One

Congratulations! This is the Image of the Week selection for the Wildlife Gallery, week ending 31st August, 2012!It was over in a minute or two, but I will never forget the glimpse we had of this elusive and beautiful leopardess in Mana Pools. They are resident in the area but not often seen and very skittish. We spotted her under the canopy of a tree on the edge of a bed of reeds in the Zambezi river late one afternoon after the sun had set and we were on our way back to camp.

I love that this is a TRULY wild leopard in one of the last TRULY wild places in Africa...and not one that we were able to almost impale in a game viewer without her budging.

She sat for a minute or two, gave us a fleeting glance, and disappeared into the reeds and out of sight.

The light was at an absolute minimum so I opened my lens aperture wide and pushed the ISO.
The Nikon D3s is amazing at high ISO settings and I was very pleased with how this came out.

Techs:
Nikon D3s with Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f4.0 @ 1/80 SS @ ISO-7200
Rested on beanbag over car window
60-70% of full frame image

That is one of the best leopard shots I've seen.

Just beautiful-congrats!

Dear Erasmus:

Beautiful image.

Best Regards,

Roman

The wonderful colors make this even more special. She is so pretty, love the bit of rimlight under her chin and belly too.

Lovely shot Morkel -- I would never have guessed that it was taken under such challenging conditions.

The light and colour are just lovely in this wonderful image Morkel, and I agree that the experience of observing the wildlife along the lower Zambezi is truly special!

The lighting actually turned out quite beautifully! Wow she is gorgeous!

Jaw droppingly beautiful !!

Wow, what lighting with beautiful catch light in the eye, and the leopard is tack sharp.

Thanks for all the kind comments, I'm glad you enjoyed this one!

TErrific!

The BG is full of beautiful muted color and almost painterly. The FG isn't terribly distracting but not perfect. The subject, however, is astonishing! The catch-light in her eye is amazing and the easy relaxed pose quite beautiful. ISO 7200 -- WOW...


Brian

This is one beautiful shot. The lighting is superb!

Simply the best Leopard image I've seen

thank you all so much for the kind comments!!

beautiful image...