A King in Waiting

[Brendon Cremer]

It is always such a great honour to see young male lions such as this one photographed on a recent photo safari to the Sabi Sands Game Reserve. These young males especially are not quite out of the woods as yet but thus far have defeated all odds of their survival and made it further than most, hopefully one day he to will have the chance to rule his own territory and be King.Elephant Plains Game Lodge, Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa

Image shot using a Camranger with my D3s and 200-400 attached to a monopod and a reversed gimbal head, camera triggered using the camranger software on an Iphone 5, Image was quite tight so added some canvas on top, on bottom and to the left.


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[Martin Dunn]

That's one handsome young lion Brendon.
The colours look very natural and the sharpness/detail is great.
I particularly like the low perspective. The bits you added have been done well. congrats.

[Andre Pretorius]

Love this image, Brendon!

Lots of detail on face and mane, did well to get it sharp at 1/400!
Looking at exif and no shadows, must have been overcast early morning or late afternoon?
I pick up some noise in BG.
The angle is a winner.

These guys with big feet, small canines and their pink noses can still cause a lot of havoc in your camp:Whoa!:!

Where can I find out more about the Camranger?

[Diane Miller]

Gorgeous subject well-photographed, and a spectacular angle!

I can see some cloning repeats where you added canvas -- easy to fix.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Whew, he is indeed handsome! Beautiful image Brendon, as always great processing as can be expected from you. I particularly like the BG with those soft colours and the fading trees. Stunning young male lion, nice and sharp where need be, great pose and great angle-congratulations!

Warmest regards,

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Brendon,
great low perspective , colors and detail.Think not easy to get it done with the setup attached to a long stick:bugeyed:, but really well done.

Think the image is overall a tad light and the lion has not that much `form`.So a solution would be adding a bit of exposure or adding a mid tone mask followed by contrast mask just on the lion to bring more depth into the fur, just all my takes.
In the tip of the tail is some blue creeping through, you know how to fix all the minor nits i pointed out, i think.
Last but not least i do find it a bit tight on RHS and bottom, but not much you can do, as is already FF.

Still a very nice one

TFS Andreas

[Douglas Bolt]

Brendon,

Nice capture!

I'm particularly interested in your experience with the CamRanger. I'm heading to southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana) mid month and will be taking my CamRanger. I'm hoping to be able to use it with a monopod to get a lower perspective from a Land Rover, but I've never used it from a vehicle. In what circumstances did you find it useful.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Brendon, I see you listened, wished I had known it was a tad tight originally. :bg3:

I will take into account this was at the early stages of shooting in this way and working like this is a little hit & miss at times until you get things refined. I noticed someone else using this a while back, but a very good friend of mine had two, thought it was pants so again, be interested in your thoughts, PM?

The low angle is great, but as you had a zoom I feel you could have pulled out a bit more as I assume you get a preview? Even on the laptop the image does look light, however I would go with young Andreas's thoughts. The pose and looking into frame works, likewise the BKG separates the subject well. Nothing you can do, but the the little bits overlapping the paws is a wee bit annoying for me. :w3 Personally I would loose a bit off the top to balance the RHS, certainly better than the one I saw. :cheers: Looking forward to more with this new toy, nice work.

TFS
Steve

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Very nice image Brendon. A bit tight on the LHS but otherwise a fine image.

[Morkel Erasmus]

I love the angle and the pose here, Brendon. Can't add much more to the thorough critique above.
Would love to see this "gadget" in action - do you then hold the lens/camera combo down the side of the vehicle?

[Gregor Bergquist]

Hi Brendon

Just joining the group here. A very nice shoot and a great portrait. Reminds me of those pictures I have seen of lions laying on top of dunes in the Kalahari.

TFS / Gregor

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Brendon - nice low angle and look at this young male. I too find it a bit tight on the lhs and a bit light. Excellent suggestions above for taking this already excellent image up even another notch. Looking forward to seeing more with you new toy.

TFS,
Rachel

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Brendon,

very nice image. A tad tight, but we cannot have everything in life :S3: Love the low angle here very much.
I as well wonder about the set up here. Very interested in this!!

Have a great day

Ciao
Anette

[Brendon Cremer]

Hi Andre Thanks very much. The camranger is great just google Camranger and you will get to their website, ODP Shop also stocks them now.

[Brendon Cremer]

Thanks very much Douglas, the camranger is great, by far the best remote trigger of its kind. i used it mostly on my D3s with a 200-400 attached, so with this big lens i used it attached to my gimbal head turned upside down on the end of a monopod.

[Brendon Cremer]

Thanks very much all, much appreciated.

Just to give you all a little more information on the Camranger, it is a device that creates a wireless network between your camera and your Iphone, I Pad or Macbook, i believe it also works on Android as well. There is a free download app called camranger that you install on your Iphone or Ipad, this allows you full control over your camera as well as giving you a live view option so you can see what your camera is seeing. When i say full control over your camera its not everything in your menu but rather shooting functionality, you can change between exposure modes so M S A P, you can change metering modes, as well as all settings relative to exposure mode, so ISO, Aperture and Shutterspeed, it will also allow you to change bewteen shooting modes, so nikon wise continuous high, continuous Low and Single shot. The live view fuction allows you to focus buy a touch on the screen. Capturing image is a simple a pressing the capture button in the app, this works a little differently in Canon and Nikon, the canon will continuously take pictures as long as the capture button is pressed much the same way your shutter button works in continuous shooting mode, Nikon on the other hand you have to set how many image you would like to take upon pressing the capture button up to a burst of 30 images, i was working mostly between 3 and 6. Range wise its pretty good however this is affected by your battery power on both camera and phone, but with both fully charged i got 50m out of it (line of Sight) with no problems at all.

It is by far the best remote trigger system i have used taking into accoun the package as a whole and the biggest aspect is being able to focus from the phone as well as use live view. there are many other products out there that may give you more distance and possible some other features but as a whale package, functionality and all this is perfect for me.

If anyone has any questions please do feel free to PM me.

[Douglas Bolt]

Brendon,

Wow! How did you manage a D3s and a 200-400 on a monopod? I'm worried about how to stabilize a 7D/24-105 on a monopod.

[Brendon Cremer]

Ha ha Douglas, very carefully, needless to say my forearm is now twice the size it was. Its not easy and takes some getting used to but you'll get the hang of it.

[edwardselfe]

This is interesting in terms of the new device, but not one of your best shots I don't think. However, given all the constraints that you mention (and the not inconsiderable fact that you have to hang your camera upside down!!) I think you did a great job. Most PP has been mentioned I think.
Ed