Huddle at the pan

[Shreyas Mantri]

Hello all,
This is an image from the Okaukuejo waterhole in Etosha, shot under the harsh sun close to noon. My only wish here is to have taken the shot with a little larger depth of field so as to get all of the animals sharp, but this all happened when I was trying to shoot a portrait of a springbok. There's also a sight haziness which is from the cloud of dust produced from the preceding animals.
Nevertheless, I personally am excited about the trio in their panic mode and the water droplets flying in the air :S3:
Due to the harsh light, I've to play around with the luminosity etc. to tone the Etosha stones down (to my taste), and I look forward to hearing what you all have to say!
Thanks

EDIT: Forgot the Exif data :Whoa!:
Canon 7D, 300mm 2.8 II, f/2.8, @ 1/8000s, ISO 320

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Shreyas - nice action and sharpness. I do wish the front gemsbok was angled a little more towards you but that is completely outside your control. The harsh light has been tamed but I wonder if you went a little too far in doing so as the image feels kind of grey and sooty to me, especially the water.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Shreyas, I think you did extremely well under harsh conditions, but I really do like the action in this. It would be nice to have had the third one more visible, however very difficult. Colour looks balanced, but you might like to look at Levels and pinch the L & R sliders in to meet the axis? You could, as you say have increased the DOF, but hey, looks good.

Your posting some nice work, keep it up. :cheers:

TFS
Steve

[Shreyas Mantri]

Thanks for your input, Rachel and Steve!
@ Rachel, the haziness that you see is because of a cloud of dust that was created by animals that ran right ahead of these three. The change in contrast did tone the haziness down a bit, but I haven't changed a thing to tame the dust beyond that to keep it natural.
Thx

[Morkel Erasmus]

I can't believe the result in the conditions you shot this in! Very nice Shreyas, and great action. The DOF seems fine at this size, yet I presume at higher res you pick up on it a bit more?