Wresling Yellow mongoose

[BenBotha]

Canon 7D2
Canon 500 F4
F 4
ISO 400
1/500

Taken in Nossob camp, Kgalagadi Trans frontier park.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Good evening Ben,

Love those wrestlers in great light, wonderful action captured and great expression there from both subjects:) I really like the POV, the composition works well for me.

Would like to comment on colours etc but I am away from home and on a (very) non-calibrated laptop, will revisit when home and really looking forward to see what the other members say. A very attractive image and I love the content, not sure about the sharpness but looking at your exif and considering the "situation", given enough time I would have gone for higher ISO, more SS and DOF 6.3 or 7.1.

Awesome stuff, one does not get to see this every day, besides...these little guys are super fast! I assume all you barely had time to grab the camera and press the shutter, so well done on this - I so enjoyed viewing:cheers:

Kind regards,

[haseeb badar]

Hi Ben -- what a beautiful image ! beautiful light and great low POV ! Certainly i also feel that iso could have been raised for more SS . I also feel that some more space shld be provided on the LHS where that standing mongoose is staring and the space from RHS should be cropped further. I dont know how these creatures behave but common sense says they must be real fast , so really well done on capturing this beautiful image ! TFS !

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Ben a great shot with a perfect low shooting angle and stunning light. Superb pose of the two mongooses.
I like the tones and the colors .
Shooting techs have been not ideal from my POV , as you have not enough sharpness or too much for a motion blur action shot .Either higher or lower SS was required for me :e3.

TFS Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Ben, agree with Andreas, push that ISO, you need to be around 1/2000+ with more DoF, forget this f/4 you are not going to nail the action, especially with two subjects. The angle & interaction looks good, with some nice light too, the 500 easily will give you that lovely, diffuse BKG too. Personally I still am unsure how well the 7DMK2 compares with the 5D on higher ISO, but I really think you should push the 'envelop' on this and so have more keepers in the bag.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Ben - nice action and low pov. Excellent suggestions for in the field above.

TFS,
Rachel

[BenBotha]

Thanks for the comments. I do agree with the depth of field limitation of F4 and the 1/500 being suboptimal. I was photographing something else when these 2 appeared and I basically just changed the camera position, no time to change settings. They were busy for about 10 seconds and gone again. I did a RP with extra selective sharpening. WDYT?
Ben

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Ben. I love the action and low angle, and the light of course.
You did fairly well given your shutter speed and aperture combo - but I agree with Steve you need to push the ISO a bit.
Maybe do some test shots at home and decide where your "ceiling" is according to personal preference?
The modern cameras can handle it well!

[BenBotha]

The 7D2 handles 800 plus a little Iso without any problems. As said, I was sitting on my bum, looking at something else when these 2 came along.

I checked the times on the 20 fotos I got, they were taken in 4 seconds. Then the subjects were on their way again no chancr for changes. Thats the practical issue. The photography issues are that the ss and iso were suboptimal, but thats what I got. Thanks again for all the constructive suggestions. Ben

[Morkel Erasmus]

Good points Ben.
As we say - an "ideal world" suggestion.
This image is certainly a keeper in my books!