Young panda in winter

I photographed this young panda in China with a Canon 500mm f/4 handheld.  I rarely use a tripod for long lenses simply because I want the flexibility in movement.  Tripods can be inhibiting, especially when you’re following movement.  This is especially true when shooting birds in flight, but even slow-moving mammals like pandas are best photographed when a person has complete freedom of movement. My settings were 1/500, f/5.6, and 1000 ISO.  As much as I appreciate sharp backgrounds, the completely out of focus wintry environment behind the panda worked perfectly to direct our attention exactly where I wanted it -- on the subject.