Meerkat Morning

[Morkel Erasmus]

This is one from our June 2010 trip to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. This colony of meerkats (suricates) was soaking up the morning sun, which was coming from behind them and illuminating them nicely!

I am hoping to do a photographic project on a meerkat colony living on a local farm not 15minutes from my house this year...

Techs:
Canon 7D with 100-400mm L IS USM
f8.0 @ 1/2500 SS @ ISO-640
Exposure bias -1

[Steve Canuel]

Neat shot Morkel. The rimlight on this one provides some nice definition for the animals. I like the pano crop and how they've divided themselves to look off to both sides.

[Jay Gould]

This is very cool; captured the back lighting very well.

[Hilary Hann]

Pano crop excellent choice. The lighting makes this very interesting and I also like the profiles heading off in different directions giving an indication of the way meerkats are always on the lookout. Nice sense of environment without it being shoved in your face.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Morkel, this could be a very interesting project and I bet you will have fun in the process, no pun intended. :w3

The rim light works well, creating a nice 'halo' around the subjects and illustrates the classic pose of this creature. The position of the Meerkats, all in a row, certainly lends itself to the pano crop, good call.

Can you tell me Morkel please, is this FF, or cropped and what PP have you done to the image, or is this straight from camera, just curious.:w3

TFS
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the comments folks

Steve - not much done, processed a while ago so my memory is faded on exact steps, might have increased the blacks in RAW slightly to enhance the mood, just cropped to pano from top and bottom, pretty much out-of-camera look (I used the negative exposure bias to achieve this and metered off the meerkats)

[Ken Watkins]

Morkel,

Nice rim light, and great head positions.

I must get some of these one day, hopefully in June.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Love the way you have included the environment here . The back light accaentuates the alert position of these lively animals !!

[Harshad Barve]

Top Class image
TFS

[Dumay de Boulle]

Very nice Idea and you have pulled it off perfectly...Nicely done bud

[Rachel Hollander]

Morkel - Nicely done and the pano crop works really well. Looking forward to seeing the fruits of your project in the future.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks very much everyone...