Ndutu Cheetah family

[Marc Mol]

Just back from another Ndutu/Serengeti sojourn,

with no foundation rain in Nov & Dec conditions were very dry and the initial rain and subsequent water from my first week here soon disappeared and the majority of the migration left the Ndutu/Kusini area for greener pastures in the Seronera.

Having said that, cheetah numbers were very good, and witnessed 25 different individuals. :cheers:


It was 6.42 pm and with the sun almost set:

Here mum and her 4 x five month old cubs have my attention as the sun sets on the grassland plains of Ndutu. We tracked this wonderful family of 5 for my 10 days here and also found them on the Kusini/Serengeti side during the 2nd half of my trip, they were all doing very well when I last saw them just 4 days ago.

On my first day I heard this mother had managed to bring down a young zebra, no mean feat with a protective mother around,:Whoa!: but after that she concentrated more on Thommies and their babies.

Stay tuned for more of this wonderful 5.:w3


Nikon D500
Nikkor 400 f/2.8E FL VR
1/1250s
f/4
ISO2200

F/F, bean bag- flat & low as possible, curves, levels, TK adj's in ACR & PS CC'17.

Cheers
Marc

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Marc

Glad to hear the family is doing well. We followed them for 2 days and on the last day the mother walked and walked, but never committed to a hunt. We lost them on the 3rd day from the Ndutu area. Good that you had all 5 looking at you. I wish Mom's body is more parallel to the camera plane than a looking bak pose. Glad that you included the sliver of orange in the BG. Loi

[Amanda Robinson]

Nice colours and composition, maybe better without the orange sharp on sky..or not?

[Jonathan Ashton]

Marc I think this is terrific! The composition and poses are excellent. I like the colours and exposure too.
I suspect you were very conscious of getting a sharp clean image while the going was good but I wonder did you get the chance to take any with a smaller aperture? The faces look sharp but I wonder if a smaller aperture would have made them even better? Perhaps the adult head is not perfectly sharp? DOF and deciding which head to focus on for best effect and quickly - not an easy choice I suspect.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Marc -- A lovely scene with the whole family looking in the camera against the setting sun. Yes definitely the females face is not that sharp as compared to the cubs more dof might have helped here but for that more iso might have been better to compensate the f stop. Also i find that oof tree in the bkg above the females head a bit distracting .
There is also a hint blue/cyan in the whites of all the cheetah's . All in all i really liked this image.

TFS !

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Marc - I've looked at this a few times. Love the grouping and the look to camera. No one else has mentioned it but overall the image feels a bit dark to me though given the time there probably was not a lot of available light. I too can see a more pano version without the pink at the top. Agree about the dof and sharpness. Still a really nice sighting and grouping. Looking forward to seeing more from your trip.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Love the collective stare here. I agree with Rachel that it seems a tad dark overall?
I can see why you wanted to include the pink, but it does sadly draw the eye a bit?

[Marc Mol]

Many thanks for all your comments, much appreciated.


I agree with Rachel that it seems a tad dark overall?

Thanks Morkel.

It was 6.42 pm and with the sun almost set, so lighting was very much at a premium and not wanting to embellish this in PP.

This is indicative to what I saw on this evening.

Agree re. the pink/orange in the sky and would have preferred it spread right across the frame.