matrishva vyas
Camera: Nikon Z9
Lens: Nikkor 70-200 f mount
Aperture: f/10
Shutter speed: 1/6400
ISO: 800
Description: Lions of Topi pride trying to hunt an adult buffalo. Backlit with rimlight and dust intensify the action.
Story from behind the lens: We were photographing Mbili Bora cheetahs. Benson got the radio message that Topi pride lions are walking. He asked me (read ordered me) to stop shooting and sit on the chair. Before I could "obey", he started the vehicle and drove towards lions. Lion were making a strategy to figure out the potential prey. But we were on the other side of the gorge. Benson probably had an intuition that direction of hunt would be towards our side. He positioned the vehicle. I quickly changed settings. Aperture size was reduced to get maximum depth as number of animals were more. Boosted ISO to get fast shutter speed. Some couple of minutes later lions zeroed on to a buffalo and started hunt. The experience of Benson and the luck got this backlit image with dust and rimlight adding to the visual appeal.