The Elusive Ones

The Elusive Ones

As previously mentioned the difficulty to reach Kibber and more precisely Spiti.
Snow plays the important role in the long travel to destination , a disadvantage on one hand , but on the other it makes it more likely you get to see the snow leopard.
The reason , trekkers and or spotters have much more chances to spot the leopard: due to it’s footprints it's more easy to find in the snow , so the disadvantage turns into favor and it gives you the chance to photograph the snow leopard in the snow , what we all are looking for .
The image shows the mother with her two nearly adult cubs ( 20 months) and at the point of separation , cubs stay usually about 2 years with their mother before they go independent.
Distance was about 500 m and usually they start moving around 4,3 up to 5,3 pm , the wind sets up and at an altitude of 4600 m or 13800 ft. Temperatures drop drastically and go fast below zero down to minus 18°and some days even lower.
At that time of day light conditions are reducing fast and higher iso is needed to get reasonable results.
This image has been taken with my Canon Eos dx 1 mark ii,
a prime 600mm usm lens and a 2 times teleconverter type III was also used, all mounted on a sturdy tripod and triggered with remote control.
I am not in favor of using the 2 times converter as results are rather poor , at least to my experiences , but it helps a lot in having a high shutter speed with f8 as the lowest diafragma , in my case the iso run up to 3200 ending at 5000 , but finally i am satisfied with this image and above all , being a witness of this scenery.
Need info about this expedition feel free to contact me.
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