Mother and Cub

[Loi Nguyen]

Tough image to pull off I know. Spotted this leopard mother and her weeks old cub walking along the road on our night drive at Selinda camp. Looks like the mother had to move the cub for safety and she chose the cover of darkness to do it. The cub was such a good cub and sticking to her Mother like glue. We followed them for a little while, but then the Mother decided to get off the road and took the cub into the bush parallel with the road, we knew we began to interfere with them, so we backed off to give them peace. We looked for them the next day, but didn't find them.

1DX
70-200f2.8 II @ 102mm
1/200
f4
ISO-6400
Handheld
Light from spot light.
Reduced highlights and boosted up exposure in Lr5

Not sure what can be done to improve this image. Appreciate your feedback.

How would you shoot in such conditions?

Thank you

Loi