Panthera pardus orientalis
Oct, 2014Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo of a Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) cub was taken in Tallinn Zoo during just a simple photo course I was giving to my friend. She is a big fan of leopards and since they are quite hard subjects to photograph, specially in zoo's we decided that she sould start learning from them.Time
It was quite chilly October 24th, but the sky was cloudless. Time was 15.53 PM local time when I captured this image. We had been standing and shooting already an hour and all the times the cubs where playing and running around their area. Finally one decided to calm down and rest, so it was perfect moment.Lighting
To shoot in zoo's is rather difficult enterprise. Most of the time you have to rely only on natural light. Specially when you shoot through the glass or bars. In this photo it was also the case. Natural daylight and since the photo is taken through multilayered glass some of the light bounced back on cub lighting it quite evenly.Equipment
The photo was taken with Olympus E520 camera and Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4.0-5.6 lens and hand held. Nothing special just the usual equipment I carry with me because it's light and quite compact.Inspiration
I kind of secretly hoped to capture this kind of pose. I'm a cat person and always when I look at my own cat at home I see strong resemblence with all the wild cats. No matter how small or big they are, they all tend to strike the same poses, specially when they are resting.Editing
Usually when you shoot through glass the images tend to have a white overcast because glass reflects light back, so to remove that you have to increase the contras. Well that's my way to get rid of it. In this image I did the same. Enhanced contrast and brightened shadow areas a bit. The photo was taken with ISO 800, which tends to get quite noisy on Olympus E520, but in this image I even liked it and added even a nit sharpening in post processing.In my camera bag
My bag contains Olympus E-520, my old but reliable friend. Two kit lenses Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4.0-5.6 and Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 and old Olympus FL-40 flash. That's it. So far I have never missed a shot I wanted to take with this gear.Feedback
As this photo was taken in zoo and zoo's usually have bars or glass barriers between you and your subject then it's always a challenge to get the picture you want. In case of glass you must get your lens as close to the glass as possible and if you have lens hood you have to put it against the glass to stop any light coming behind you reflecting back to the lens. It's also helps when you are dressed in dark clothing because light clothing reflects back form the glass.
