Huge male lion

It's hard to appreciate how large male lions are until you are very close to them. Similarly, when you take a frame-filling photograph of these huge cats, they're massive head, huge teeth, and monster paws are nothing less than awesome. One of the problems I have photographing from a safari vehicle in Africa is that the camera position is several feet above the ground. Animals are much more impressive when you can shoot from a low angle because that underscores their stature. The reason I like this picture is because the lion was on a small hill which placed him about eye level with my own position. I used a 500 mm telephoto, and that allowed me to capture this tight composition. My settings were 1/200, f/11, 200 ISO. I took this portrait in 2007 with a Canon 1Ds Mark II. Had I photographed this today with my current 1Dx Mark II, I would have used a faster shutter and a higher ISO to make sure of maximum sharpness. Fortunately, the picture is sharp as is, but using a shutter speed of 1/200 with a 500mm lens is not a good idea. There is too much possibility for blurred movement.