No quarter given or asked!

[Marc Mol]

When one is surrounded by 15 members of the famous Selinda pride you're chances of escape are very slim indeed, that's not to say this very fit daga boy would not give up without a fight!

And fight he did, no quarter was given or asked as the battle raged on for close to an hour with the old boy getting to his feet on three separate occasions. In this frame, one lioness is reeling back to avoid those massive horns and
showing off her impressive muscles :bg3:

Taken at 9.43am, so lighting cond's starting to get quite harsh, no complaints really as one does not get to see a buffalo hunt everyday, especially during the day.:w3

The dead tree coming out from behind the rear lioness was unfortunate, (preferring not to clone out) but this was one of two frames that had the horn lunge.


D4 70-200 f/4VR 1/1600s f/7 ISO800@ 160mm.

Cropped around 10%, slight levelling and wanted to keep the lioness head in frame for extra context, bean bag from front pax seat, Curves, levels, TK masking adj, PS CC'15 & ACR.

Cheers
Marc

[John Hackney]

Gorgeous shot. Great action! I think the tree could be readily removed from the shot in PS if you so desired.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Mark - Great action and it looks like you handled the harsh light well. I do wish that the whole frame was shifted left a bit as I would rather see the other lioness than have just her face peeking in and you have plenty of empty space on the right. I understand that the action was likely unfolding rather quickly and sometimes we get caught in the moment rather than recomposing. Yes, the tree out of the head is unfortunate but as you know, I too would leave it. There's a pretty strong halo along the backs of the lionesses. All in all though an amazing sighting.

TFS,
Rachel

[Marc Mol]

Thanks John & Rachel

Most likely web downsizing that's causing the annoying halo but it's not evident on my Tiff/RAW file and hadn't seen it when posting, my apology.
I do have many frames of the action but this particular one captured the horn lunge and retraction best and having the lion head coming into play was an unavoidable consequence. :e3

RP halo fix submitted:

[Mark Needham]

Amazing action captured here, and it tells one heck of a story. Look at the muscles in the middle lioness - wow! Great job handling the somewhat harsh lighting conditions. You did well capturing the action, especially given how fast this can happen. :5

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Marc this is a stunning frame with superb action , love like Mark the lioness in the middle ..... packages of muscles that every body builder might like to have ....:t3.
Considering the fast action i think you did well , but agree the whole frame to the left might have been better , but hey we all have been there and will be there when it comes to fast action and we cannot predict what is going to happen next !!

Coming back to the tones :bg3: like i mostly do ..... forgive me :bg3: , the red channel is a bit weak from HL to 3/4 tones , i might try do give the red channel a bit more tone , resulting in a bit more density overall if you like ..... try that and see what you think .

Stunning work Marc ... TFS Andreas

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Superb action, the battle between predator and prey highlighted explicitly! For a sighting like this, lighting becomes less relevant and we take what we get! TFS.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Marc -- Fantastic image ! You have captured the action so very well , and certainly the light and framing is secondary here . The muscles are phenomenal and those horns are looking dangerous for the lionesses point of you , hope she didn't injured herself badly .

TFS !

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

A great moment well captured Marc! I was just going to suggest backing off just a touch with the contrast when I've realised I was looking at an RP - the OP is spot-on in my books!

[Morkel Erasmus]

This must have been an insane sighting - I can imagine you were thrilled to get to see this...
Great action shot! I think the framing dilemma can be overcome by simply cropping a tad more off the RHS?