Pic(k) of the week 40: Cheetah on the lookout

I'm writing this post, while flying as a passenger between Windhoek,Namibia and Johannesburg, South-Africa. Unfortunately our 2 week Namibian photo adventure is coming to an end. What a great trip it has been!

We crossed this beautiful South-West African country by roof top equipped 4x4, clocking over 3000km on its gravel and sand tracks. Being away from all modern forms of civilization like phones, TV, Radio and Internet has been very refreshing to say the least!

Not staying connected meant that I'm 2 weeks behind in my Pic(k) of the week series, which will be corrected in the next few days... 

The image above was made on day 2 at Okonjima, the home of the Africat foundation, a non-profit organization 200 km North of Windhoek which rehabilitates wild Cheetahs and Leopards and releases them back into the wild. A great initiative!

On a late afternoon game drive in the 22000 ha private nature reserve, we spotted this beauty standing on a 3 to 4 m high termite mount. A photographer's dream coming through!

With its topspeed of 120km/h, the Cheetah is the fastest land animal on the planet, able to achieve 0 to 100km/h in 3 seconds, better than the best sports car! Using its tail as an aircraft rudder, it's able to take very abrupt turns.

Image details:

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200 2.8 VR2 lens + 1.7 teleconverter

ISO 1000, 290mm, f5.6, 1/320s

quick RAW processing with LR3

Editing the +2000 images will be the first priority. Once this process is done, I plan on publishing a series of detailed blogposts about my latest African photo adventure!

Till then,

take that lens cap off,

BJORN
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