Shooting from a boat

The reason that the Pantanal has become a popular destination in Brazil for nature photography is because it's the only place where you can predictably see the elusive jaguar. After cruising around on the river for two hours, we finally spotted two of them -- a pair of juvenile male siblings. To find two large males together is rare, so it was an exciting experience to photograph them. This is one of the brothers, and for the first hour or so we had overcast lighting. I was really happy with the shots largely because the light was ideal. When the clouds drifted away from the sun, the mid-morning light was quite harsh. Manipulating RAW files, it's possible to improve the images to an acceptable level, but they will never be as good as photos taken with diffused light. My settings for this picture were 1/1600, f/9, 1600 ISO, and I used a 500mm f/4 Canon telephoto. I specifically used a fast shutter speed because I was handholding the camera in a boat.