Ten years ago I led a photo tour to China, and for that group I paid a lot of money to have three private sessions with a panda in a natural location of my choice. I chose nearby bamboo thickets. We had an 18 month old juvenile because the Chinese handler could manage an animal of that size. Actually, he treated the young panda like it was his own child. It was really sweet to watch. During one of the photo sessions, a wild panda appeared and studied the proceedings with much interest. Adult males can weigh 350 pounds, so you can see why it would be impossible to control such a large creature. This male came out of the forest and posed for about 2 or 3 minutes before he disappeared into the trees. My settings were 1/200, f/8, and 500 ISO. To give you a sense of how close this guy was, I used a 70-200mm telephoto set to 150mm.
0 Comments