After a frustrating morning with few sightings, the afternoon began in a similar fashion. Then, finally, we caught a break. Another jeep tipped us off about a female leopard nearby, and sure enough, when we arrived, she was asleep on a tree branch. The situation wasn’t ideal—there were plenty of obstructing branches, some even across her face—but it was a huge improvement over the uneventful morning! We had seen her earlier in the week and knew she had a cub, though we couldn’t spot it nearby. After 20 minutes, the leopard descended from the tree and walked off.
We waited back on the track to see if she would reappear, and to our surprise, she did, just a few meters away. Two other jeeps started following her, and since we didn’t want to crowd her, we reversed back to the original tree, hoping to spot where she was headed. In a chance glance up to the canopy, we noticed her cub perched on a branch.
Luckily, the cub had chosen a better location, free of distracting branches and twigs. While the other jeeps called us to join them with the mother, we were content to stay with the cub. It was wonderfully relaxed, occasionally glancing toward its mother, who was seated on a fallen tree about 30 meters behind us.
We spent a magical hour with the cub as the sun set, giving me the opportunity to get creative with the exposure, all while hoping for a pool of sunlight to fall on its face. I normally shoot in aperture priority, monitoring the shutter speed and adjusting the ISO as needed. I opted for a slightly smaller aperture, f/6.3, to ensure every part of the cub was sharp, rather than my usual f/4.5. Although the cub wasn’t moving, the people in the jeep were, so I kept the shutter speed at 1/800th of a second, which still allowed for a reasonable ISO.
One of the great advantages of a mirrorless camera is the ability to preview exposure directly in the viewfinder. I used exposure compensation to make quick, subtle adjustments—a critical feature when photographing wildlife, which often doesn’t stay still for long! I experimented with exposures ranging from -1 to -3 stops underexposed, aiming to correctly expose the cub in the spotlight while blending the distracting background into darkness. The histogram in the viewfinder helped me avoid clipping the shadows too much. Eventually, I settled on -2 stops underexposed and shot a few frames with 1/3-stop differences, just to be sure.
It’s not often you have the luxury of time to try different things, and I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity the cub presented. As the sun dipped lower, the female leopard stood and stretched in typical cat fashion—paws out in front, bottom in the air—prompting the cub to jump down and join her. They exchanged a brief greeting, touching noses before vanishing into the forest. What an extraordinary encounter!
Full Technical Information:
OM-1, OLYMPUS M.150-400mm F4.5
Exposure: 1/800 sec at f/6.3, ISO 800
Focal Length: 400 mm (800mm full-frame equivalent)