Brawl

[edwardselfe]

Here's a shot I took of two male lions having a short but brutal fight over a pride of females. The full story is on my blog here (http://www.edwardselfephotography.com/news.html) and rates as one of the most intense sightings I've ever seen in Luangwa!

I took a series of shots on continuous, but this is probably the best. I'd love input on how to take it up a bit more.

Canon 1D4, 500mm f4 + 1.4x converter.
1/1250s, at f8, ISO 400 (I nearly missed the whole episode from having the ISO down at 100, but just managed to raise it to 400 in time. Should have gone to 800 but just managed to get to 400 when the action started!).
Cropped to 16:9 using full width of the image.

Thanks for comments.

Ed

[Martin Dunn]

Intense action.
Nothing wrong with the exposure and colours look natural.
It all looks a bit clean though and doesn't quite convey the savagery of the fight you describe.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Edward, great detail on both lions, both sharp, and the light looks fine. The flying dirt shows the intensity of the fight, and the central placement works well. Looking at the blue ripples in the river, my eyes feel this needs some CCW rotation, but that would probably 'skew' the FG. :w3

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Intense image for sure. Great sighting and action. I only wish we could see more of the eye of at least one of them. But superb image none the less!

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Ed - Great action, well captured. If it were mine, I would probably drop the brightness of everything except the lions by -3 or so just to give the lions a little more pop, I would burn the brightest fg sand slightly, apply a little ccw rotation to level the ripples in the bg and apply a round of NR just to the water. Very minor tweaks that just lift an already excellent image.

TFS,
Rachel

[Markus Jais]

Fantastic action shot and amazing behavior. Show's what males lions evolved for. Growing really strong to fight over females and then keep them as long as their young need to survive.

Markus

[Steve Canuel]

Nice "Rumble by the River" I like your centered composition. I also think it's cool how the lions form a triangle and contain the flying dirt between them.

[Girish Prahalad]

terrific & intense action captured here. details, DOF & exp are great. the flying mud adds a lot drama.

[Carl Walker]

Super interaction here Ed. Nice open area to capture images in especially of this nature. As mentioned FG is a bit bright . Great action shot TFS

[hennieloots]

Hi Ed - Awesome action captured. I like the poses and that you left some space to interpret the context. I think all the techs were covered.
TFS, regrads.
Hennie

[Morkel Erasmus]

Cracking action photo!
I agree with Rachel, worth spending time to "lift" the lions from the surrounding scene with similar colour tone. I also like the flying dirt under them.
In a perfect world I'd have liked to see their feet...

[edwardselfe]

Thanks for all your comments. I will work on it again. I agree about the feet, but yeah, in a perfect world.....
ED

[Arthur Morris]

Yes to intense and the flying dirt really works for me. In an ideal world that would have had the courtesy to battle at the top of the bank.... A small crop from the bottom and toning down the bright sand there would improve a very dramatic image. Well done.