1Dx 400f/2.8, Shot @ f/4 & 1/320th, Londolozi Northern South Africa.
Shot at night, some spotlight plus the 600EX-RT for fill, this Guy was just down from a Tree where he had placed his Kill, this particular Leopard they called "Tyson" as in Mike Tyson, real bruiser, and looks it, in this particular case though he had Treed a Kill, and one of his "Sons" had come along, Tyson allowed him to take over the Kill and he went off to hunt some more, unusual behaviour for a Leopard Male in his Prime.
looks like the auto focus & metering behaved well with the spotlight
Hi Gary, I was impressed, I had heard a lot prior to this trip about the 1Dx and it's inability to focus in very low light, I didn't find that an issue as long as the subject had some lighting, even a very small amount was enough, the Pro Photographer I was with was shooting a Nikon D3S & also a D3x with a 200-400F/4 Lens, I was shooting 2 1Dx bodies with a 300f/2.8 V2 & a 400f/2.8 V2 and there was no doubt the 1Dx was significantly better at getting focus, I could hear that Nikon 200-400 'hunting" to distraction, to the degree that when I left South Africa, I left the pro Photographer with one of my 1Dx bodies & the 400, at his request, I head off again in June with the same chap & always happy to assist another "Nikonian" across to the dark side.
On the metering side I shot only in Manual, the Camera tended to want to always shoot wide open which makes sense, but with some trial & error I quickly worked something that would keep the Blacks Black, but other than the shots where there was just Rim Lighting, the meter was pretty well doing the job, I could have shot any of this on Aperture or shutter priority without any issue.
I will say though that the amount of shots that would have been more ideally framed if I had had 250mm left me wishing for the Mythical Canon 200-400f/4 (x1.4), hopefully this year. Very few of my shots are less than f/4 so I have high hopes for this Lens, should Canon ever get the thing to Market.
