When a lion looks at you right in the eyeballs, you know what he must be thinking: "I'll be that guy tastes really good in soup!" This was a night safari in South Africa at a private reserve, and my flash caught an intense stare that to this day I still find chilling. The weird thing, though, is that when people are in a vehicle -- even an open vehicle with no sides or roof -- lions don't bother you. Land Rovers and safari vans are bigger than they are and that intimidates the big cats. But should a person take one step away from the shape of the vehicle, that's an entirely different matter. I shot this laying down on one of the benches, and after I'd made the exposure I heard rustling behind me. I turned around and saw three lionesses about four or five feet from my feet that were dangling over the edge. Very unnerving, especially at night. But, as I said, they didn't do a thing. I shot this with my film camera in 2000: a Mamiya RZ 67, 350mm lens (equivalent to a 180mm lens in the full frame digital format), hand held with a Metz 60CT-4 flash. Everything was manual with this system, and I had to calculate the exposure using the guide number of the flash and estimating the flash-subject distance. Here is the formula: GN = distance x f/stop. So, the f/stop is the guide number divided by the distance. This is still valid today, but of course everyone uses automatic exposure now.
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