Stallion Skirmish

[Morkel Erasmus]

I have wanted a good "zebra fight" image for a while now.

I went to Rietvlei Nature Reserve which is on the outskirts of Pretoria, South Africa, over the Christmas weekend in rainy conditions and was rewarded with this. A bit of a crop since they weren't close, but I think the image quality has held up nicely given the ISO setting was 2000.

This'll have to do until I get a better one :eek3::eek3::w3:w3

Techs:
Nikon D3s with Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II + 1.4x TC @ 700mm
f5.6 @ 1/1250 SS @ ISO-2000
about 50-60% of the original image

[Rachel Hollander]

Morkel - great action and it has held up well except for a bit more noise in the bg than we normally see on your images. I wish you could have gotten closer but we all know how that isn't always possible.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Morkel I like this, still away so will take a look early next week again when I'm back. Overall it has a nice feel to me, like the space, just wonder about a little off the LHS to take it of centre? I also like the clash of the heads and rearing bodies.

Will comment more later, BTW just found a Short Eared Owl site, so going back tomorrow, -7 here, so hope you are enjoying the warm sun.

cheers
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks Rachel and Steve.
Rachel - funny how it looks a bit more noisy here than in PS. It's actually quite a clean file. Will look into it...:Whoa!:

Steve - my original crop of this posted elsewhere had them off-centre. Andrew Aveley actually suggested I centre them - did the trick for me...:w3

[Steve Kaluski]

That's fine Morkel, I guess it can work either way, however I do like the space around the subject as presented. :w3

[dankearl]

Really nice action photo, Morkel.
There is a bit of noise, but one more round of NR on the BG should take care of that.
I like the crop and the room.

[Marc Mol]

Quality has held up well Morkel, considering the large crop, would be happy to have this, nice action from this pair.
TFS

[v.p.nurdeen]

Hi Morkel,
Superb action image.
VPN

[Morkel Erasmus]

Really nice action photo, Morkel.
There is a bit of noise, but one more round of NR on the BG should take care of that.
I like the crop and the room.

Dan, we have a lot of light in general, but we also have inclement weather like anywhere else. On this day it was overcast with intermittent rain (as stated in my OP).
One of the main reasons you see many of my images at high ISO settings is because I love shooting in the golden hours of dawn and dusk, and to maintain certain SS/aperture combos on my kit I set it to auto-ISO :w3.

[Steve Canuel]

Very nice Morkel. I like it as posted for the action, colors, and slightly blurred vignette look. Nicely done :5

[Paul Taylor]

Beautiful shot. I love it. Great action/head positions and the OOF areas/colours are fabulous. Love it. Comp works for me. The background is so nice and smooth that I actually find the very faint darker line distracting. If it were mine I would be tempted to crop it out or have it right at the edge of the frame.

[Harshad Barve]

Awesome action shot here
TFS