Pic(k) of the week 48: My portrait session with a wild LION - (Fujifilm X-T2 and XF100-400)
Mid November, I got back from a great 12 day photo-adventure to Eastern Africa... Part of the trip was a weeklong wildlife photo-safari in three of the National Parks in Northern Tanzania.
Expect an extensive blogpost about shooting wildlife (no pun intended!) with the XF100-400 lens, towards the end of the month.
Meanwhile, the image below is probably my number one favorite of the trip! Just when we are about to leave the Ngorongoro Crater, we bumped into a pride of lions. Like most lions during the middle part of the day, they were sleeping when we first discovered them. As we were in no hurry to leave the National Park, I elected to wait at least 30-45 mins in order to see if they would get up...
Patience paid of when one of the males, stood up after about 30mins and looked straight into the camera for a very short while (less than 10s). Needless to say that being ready with the appropriate gear, is key in situations like that!
Image details:
- Fujifilm X-T2 with the XF100-400 lens and 1.4x TC (teleconverter)
- ISO 640, 1/420, f13, 560mm
- Lightroom CC for RAW development
- Nik SilverEfex Pro for Black and White conversion
Just before leaving on the trip to Africa, I attended a seminar by fine-art wildlife photographer David Yarrow; in most of his images, David is able to show some kind of an intimacy with the animal by shooting from a very low angle. When the lion was looking me straight into the eyes (although through the viewfinder), I knew I had a winning shot. Being it one of the last wildlife images I shot during the trip, made it even more special!
The image will be printed large; something that I'm excited about!
For the ones that can't wait for my upcoming wildlife photography post, please check out the following link with +200 images of Wild Africa, here!
Remember: "Everybody wants to eat but few are willing to hunt".
BJORN
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