Catching that tongue

Probably my favorite picture from Africa is this shot of a leopard drinking from a waterhole at Sabi Sabi in South Africa. While my group and I were having breakfast, my guide spotted the cat from the terrace of our lodge. We abandoned breakfast and raced around the building and down to the level of the waterhole in our Land Rover. In order to capture the tongue in a perfect position, I shot this at 10 frames per second (I was using the Canon 7D Mark II at the time). I felt a horizontal composition would have included too much mud on either side, so I framed the leopard vertically. I shot this with a 100-400mm lens, and I took several compositions, experimenting with different focal lengths. I like this tight shot the best. My settings were 1/500, f/8, and 1000 ISO.