All big cats are exciting to photograph, but there is something especially exciting about capturing intimate photographs of jaguars. In my photo tour of the Pantanal, we are able to spot many of these elusive cats because we cruise a serpentine river in southern Brazil looking for them. They come to the river to hunt, and in a powerful boat we are able to cover a lot of area. All pictures are hand held because a tripod in a boat in pointless. The ideal lens for this kind of photography is a long telephoto zoom, but my first time there I had a 500mm f/4 lens fixed. This got me in tight for portraits like you see here, but I didn't have the flexibility of a zoom. When I return in November of this year for another photo tour, I will bring the new Canon 100-400mm on a 7D Mark II body. With the crop factor, this will give me a 160 - 640mm range which will be perfect.
2 Comments
Jan 14, 2016, 6:02:24 AM
Jim - Daniel, Thanks for the compliment. I didn't win the lottery either, so I will continue doing photo tours. I did win $4 though. I never played the lottery until my house was struck by lightning in June, 2009. I thought, what are the chances? So now I play sometimes.
Jan 13, 2016, 11:50:24 PM
Daniel Reynaud - A very candid portrait of a big cat resting, beautiful. Well... I didn't win anything at the lottery tonight.... I will have to wait some more before I can join you for a photo tour !!