Caring

[Ken Watkins]

Very young Elephant in the heart of the family.

Taken at Ngweshla, Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, 2nd July 2010, 17.08 in fading light.

EOS 1 D Mk IV

500mm F4 IS hand-held from vehicle

F8.3, ISO 800, 1/200

[Marc Mol]

Lovely tender moment, well captured Ken, the FG grasses and BG herd are annoying but a fact of life.:o
TFS

[Steve Kaluski]

Indeed a tender moment, but sadly the main focus is soft. The 'matriarchs' trunk is sharp 'ish' Ken, but the two little Ele's aren't? Think 1/200 was just too slow to capture the moment, why f/8?

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Very nice moment. I love watching small elephant calves and their antics. Did you use in camera noise reduction? Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Harshad Barve]

You have got some heart touching images from Zimbabwe trip Ken
TFS

[Ken Watkins]

Marc,

Whilst I admit that the rest of the herd is a nuisance, the likely hood of getting a younster unprotected is very slim, as for the grass, I have had a lot worse:D

Sabyasachi,
You had me worried there and I can confirm the in camera NR is disabled.

Harshad,

Thanks

Steve,

I will admit that the baby is not pin sharp, but in defence I will say that the average young baby is covered in a fine down which renders sharpness to be less apparent. The only time you will get a baby looking sharp is in my experience,when it is covered in mud or water.The mothers trunk looks sharper because it has lots more wrinkles adding definition to its skin. The rear Elephant was not meant to be sharp and could not have been given the limited DOF of this lens. The image itself is meant to be a "tender moment" rather than a technical perfection. F8 in an attempt to get better DOF, which apparently did not work.

[Steve Kaluski]

Ken the baby's head looks almost on the same plane as the trunk of the mother, therefore I would assume that there would more detail, even at f/8. I would assume the focus point was on the baby's head, can you confirm where the FP was please. Having the MKIV allows high ISO, more so than previous bodies, therefore I am surprised you did not increase the ISO to gain more SS than 1/200, even if your were not intending as you put it 'technical perfection'.

[Ken Watkins]

Steve,

In DPP I have two AF points lit up one on the baby Elepnaht's ruck where it crosses Mum's and the next over on the right which is on Mum's trunk.

I am not yet familiar with Mk IV ISO capabilities, although it is clear from my recent Cheetah posting that it is acceptable at ISO 1600.

[Rachel Hollander]

Ken - cute image. I might crop just a little in on the lhs to get rid of the small portion of another adult elephant that is showing there.

TFS,
Rachel

[Alfred Forns]

I like the selected crop and you did capture a tender moment ... image is about fell and this has it all over !!!

On the dof side I don't think it could have covered both even stopping way down, about the only thing I would have tried differently is increasing the ISO. I know its difficult thinking 1600 and more but with the Mk4 is no problem, you will have noise but its easy to clean. btw the kiss of death for high ISO images has any under exposure !!! Just posted one rodeo image in The Action Adventure forum at ISO 3200, might want to check it out !!!

Overall I like it a lot as presented and sure wish it were mine !!!

[Ken Watkins]

Al,

Thanks for that your info is always very useful, luckily I only have 4 weeks before I can put it into practice:D