Fast, Slow, and Hungry from Tanzania

First, we have the Fast!!

A family of cheetahs were found on three different occasions

out on the plains of the North Serengeti.  A mother, and two

one year old male and a female seemed to spend a 

lot of their late afternoon time at the bottom of this

huge tree. 

The pair you see here are the cubs. They took a quick break from their 

wrestling match to give us a quick look.  Late afternoon light, 

and a shaded area made exposures and shutter speed difficult.

I like to keep my ISO as low as possible, so the gain of a nice 

clean noise free image produces a loss of shutter speed 

and the ability to freeze the motion.

Fortunately, these awesome animals were still for this 

shot!

1/160s f/4.0 at 220.0mm iso400 

Then, the Hungry

While cruising the Ngorogoro Crater, our guide was

 made aware (via cb radio) about a family of lions

that were not too far from where we were planing

to exit this conservation Area.

We all decided to spend the balance of the light

for this day with these lions ( 6 animals).  They spent most of

their time resting, so all the attention was directed to

the two cubs, who seemed interested in some play.

It was interesting to notice that during our visit to see

so many different lions, in different areas, there 

were at least 5 pregnant females. We saw two 

females out in solo areas, as they appeared ready to

give birth. I suggested to our awesome guide 

Nickson that the lion population in the Serengeti 

was alive and healthy, and I was glad to hear him agree.

1/400s f/8.0 at 400.0mm iso200

Last, the Slow!

This Leopard Tortoise entertained all of us with an easy shot!

We all left the truck and took advantage as this cool 

looking reptile wandered across the road and trekked 

on into the park. I have several angles of this neat

animal, so I will post a few of them later on.

I would say it was about the size of a small football,

and moved along rather quickly. It was fun getting some

head on shots as the turtle seemed to be running directly 

towards me!

Thanks again to our Guides. We sure had some spectacular

opportunities during this recent tour.

More soon!

1/500s f/5.6 at 400.0mm iso200

(please click on the images for a larger view!)

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