This is a margay, a rarely seen nocturnal jungle cat native to Central and South America. It was very dark on the jungle floor, so I had to use flash. I took this in 2009 with the Canon 5D Mark II, and noise was still a serious issue back then. That’s why I had to use a low ISO of 320, and that’s why flash was necessary. I don’t like, in most cases, the look of flash with wildlife because it looks unnatural, but sometimes there’s no choice if you want a sharp picture. I tried to balance the flash with the background to show a sense of environment, although because these cats are nocturnal, a black background would have been appropriate. My other settings were 1/60 and f/5.0. I normally wouldn't have used such a slow shutter, but the brief flash duration insured a sharp image. I used a 70-200mm zoom for the shot. The relatively large lens aperture meant shallow depth of field, and that’s why I waited for the margay to turn its body so it was mostly parallel with the plane of the digital sensor.
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