First Sighting 2009

[Ken Watkins]

This is not a typo!

On 1st January 2009 I spotted some Wild Dog, the guide and tracker said this would bring me good luck for the rest of the year, I think they were right.

Taken in Lagoon Area , Kwando Concession, Northern Botswana, 1st January 2009 at 06.19.

EOS 1D MkIII

500mm F4 IS hand-held
F5.6, ISO 1600, 1600 (hence the noise acceptable to me)

[Arthur Morris]

Love the way that the animal is almost perfectly framed by the path. I could do without the darker green leaves to our right of the dog. I am fine with the level of noise but the image is less than very sharp as presented. What was the shutter speed?

[David Fletcher]

Like this Ken. Great oncoming view. Hope don't mind. (no offense will be taken if you think trash, but felt a little tweak worth doing. No good talking so did it.... selective sharpening via smart sharpening on the WD, and felt some desat of use for the foliage at -20). nr on the bg. Kept everything else as not wanting to change the mood. (including the fly by the ear...)

[Sid Garige]

All it needed was bit of selective sharpening I guess. Very well composed image. David did a great job with repost.

[Danny J Brown]

I really like this image Ken, as I do most approaching critter shots. The composition is what makes it so special and David really hit a homer with the repost tweak.

[Harshad Barve]

Liked this very much for the reasons Guruji mentioned and davidbhai's repost takes this over the top
TFS

ps , Davidbhai , I may not desat foliage

[Marc Mol]

Great comp with the head on shot Ken! Here's hoping for WD for the both of us this year ;)
TFS

[Ken Watkins]

Oops, I posted this quite late last night, I could not find the JPEG I had prepared so I did another quick one, I should have looked harder.

David thanks for the repost it is a lot better and better than the version I had intended to post.

The shutter speed was 1/500, not really fast enough.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice image Ken!

I like the composition. The enhanced sharpening works wonders. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[David Fletcher]

Oops, I posted this quite late last night, I could not find the JPEG I had prepared so I did another quick one, I should have looked harder.

David thanks for the repost it is a lot better and better than the version I had intended to post.

The shutter speed was 1/500, not really fast enough.

That's alright Ken. Pleasure. Beauty of this site is shared pool of knowledge and little tips and tricks shared for each other.

[DanWalters]

Like the straight on view and the eye contact. Also like the vert comp and the way the grasses frame the subject.

[John Ippolito]

Excellent sighting and comp, Ken. David's repost makes the dog pop off the screen. Well done indeed!