March theme-Wild Eyed Wonder

Nikon D3S
F4
Nikon 500/F4
1/320s
ISO 8000:2eyes2:

Posting this is an act of courage on my part:tinysmile_shy_t: But I cannot help it...

One very early morning this February we left Polentswa (Kalahari) and headed towards the nearby waterhole. The sky was cloudy, the previous night we experienced a heavy thunderstorm and there was little hope of doing any serious photography. I was seated as usual on the back seat, my videocamera on standby in my right hand, a mug of hot coffee in my left hand and a packet of rusks on my lap. Andre was driving. We soon spotted a lioness and her young near the water, we had seen them the day before but they were far away and the light was unfavourable, so we followed them from a distance and watched in wonder as the two siblings ran ahead of Mom, carelessly and so full of joy.

Tails in the air, lots of running, slipping and sliding through wet sand, meanwhile Mom kept stretching one big powerful paw from behind, tripped their feet and then brought them to the ground as in teaching them what hunting was all about. It was highly entertaining to watch. Soon they crossed the road and all we saw was three tails bobbing above tall grasses. At some point I asked Andre to stop the car so I could record that last bit where they disappeared from view and to our surprise they turned around and approached the vehicle, all three atop a bank of sand near the road. We suddenly realised they were looking down on us! And of course, we could not resist: out come the cameras and the lenses and we both panicked when we realised the light was just not there yet, it was way to early to shoot, it was too cloudy to even use the videocamera. We pushed the ISO as high as we could as one of the young females (about nine months old) pops her head between the grasses and comes to investigate…This is just one image of the many we have taken, and something told me to remove my equipment from the window before she took a bite of it. My guess is she saw her own reflection in the lens…

The image itself was rather noisy, despite the reputation of the D3S. I had to do quite a bit of sharpening and perhaps the IQ is not quite there, but I would like to share this moment with you - critique and comments of any nature are very welcome.

I don't know what you are complaining about :), I like it. A fairly endearing expression, open mouth, sharp eyes, good light, to me anyway. I you don't want it, send it to me :). She is saying, oops, we got caught mom!

I think this is a super image. Your PP, IMHO, is excellent. I also especially appreciate the story. TFS.

Hi Gabriela - great story and the expression of the cub is fantastic with wide eyes and a direct stare. I think this looks really good for ISO 8000:Whoa!:. While it may not hold up to a large print, in this size it looks fine. Great job on the pp. There seems to be a slight cyan cast to the whites on the chin, I would adjust this in selective color.

TFS,
Rachel

Gabriela, the big open round eyes make this image. Really good for iSO-8000. I'm looking at this with not the best monitor, so defer the colors to others. The lack of light was more than compensated for by the large pupils and innocent expression of the cub. There are two white specks near the left ear (our right) that you might consider taking out. TFS. Loi

Gabriela, the expression that you have captured is priceless! I love it. The PP looks great & given the low light, you did remarkably well. The square crop works well. And oh I loved the story very much! Makes me wanna go back to Africa again!!CheersSanjeev

Gabriela, PP looks great on this ISO-8000 shot. You should have set it to ISO-12800 and captured the behaviour shots as well - they clean up nicely too :w3.
It looks like your area of critical focus is on the bridge of the snout, though - with the eyes showing some DOF fallof. It's always tricky being this close and having to shoot wide open with the telephoto lens...the snout also appears slightly oversharpened to me.

Hi Gabriela great expression in her face, you captured this nicely.Good PP work for such high ISO. Like the overall colors and tonality of the image.A bit more DOF would have been better …… but understand that you have not been able to do so.
Would back off on sharpening in the areas Morkel was talking about .
TFS Andreas

Whew, it looks like I almost got away with this one…Thank you all for your input and constructive criticism, I really appreciate it.

Rachel, I am not sure about the cyan cast, that spot looked greenish to me but those lions just drank from the waterhole and often there is some algae left on their chin after drinking. Will take another look at the RAW images of Mom and the other sibling tomorrow.

Morkel, I have some other shots taken at higher ISO, started at 10.000 if I remember well, and then reduced gradually. The "snout" might be over sharpened, I really cannot say. I battle for some time with sharpening during PP work, when I wear my reading glasses this image looks unsharp and as soon as I take them off it looks sharp (it should be the other way around?) I am supposed to wear these things when I work... I have only started wearing them last year and I am not too happy, due for a check up and will see what happens when I get a new pair. I guess I deleted some images during the trip because I thought they were not sharp, I might have made a huge mistake...

So thank you once again for all your comments, will try and implement your suggestions best I can:S3: And I am really glad to be back on BPN:w3

Fantastic expression captured, I love the intense look in the eye. The image look sharp to me, but maybe just a tad over-sharpened in certain areas. Love the background as well. Well done!

All small nits aside, the wide eyed, open mouthed look you've captured here Gab is fabulous, just not a fan of square crops in nature, that's just me.

All details well discussed above. I love the super wide-eyed expression & dropped jaw...priceless!! And your story was fascinating. Thanks for telling all.

Hi Gabriela, great to see you pushing the ISO. :w3

I like the crop and framing, can't comment on colour too much, so I'll leave it with the others, but will view when I'm back again. The only thing that does hit me is the eye, they certainly 'pop' and to me, look a little unnatural, unless they had been eating some 'Dutch' cake or magic mushrooms. :bg3:

Looking forward to more.

TFS
Steve

Hello again, hope you are all enjoying the week-end, here in Hluhluwe it is hot and humid and we had a heavy thunderstorm yesterday, no electricity the whole afternoon and evening. Still raining now, what a great day to sit by the computer and play...

Tinus, I might have gone a bit too far with the sharpening, will look into it, thank you for your kind comments! And thank you Nancy, you are always so generous with your feedback, much appreciated.

Steve, the reason why I did not delete this not-so-sharp image is I really liked the eyes of this young girl. I wish I could show you the video! Here they come, one by one, the two sisters (I think both were females but I did not look properly, LOL). One approaches the car from above the sand bank and looks down upon us. We did not move, for fear that she might get a fright and run back to Mom. Then she comes closer, the jaw drops, whiskers kind of pointing forward, I could smell her, those beautiful round inquisitive eyes look straight into my lens. This moment did not last long. Her sibling followed and then Mom decided to come and investigate, I have another few images taken as the old lady gently stirs them away from the vehicle, we'll see what I can post in the future.

The thing I love most about those Kalahari lions, and what tells them apart from the others I have seen, is this lack of fear towards man. Unfortunately things are changing, and the amount of visitors we have encountered recently seems to affect the frequency of sightings as well as animal behaviour. With much sadness I observed a kind of trend among the Kalahari tourists, be it locals or from abroad. They shoot like arrows from waterhole to waterhole in their 4x4's to grab all possible sightings in one morning, their sole desire to see large predators. On their way they kill squirrels, birds, snakes and tortoises and whatever crosses their path. Once they reach a waterhole they keep their car engine running in case they have to "jump" in front of someone else and get closer to the animals arriving, or just to keep air-conditioning running. I still remember those good old days when we used to encounter jackals sleeping on the side of the road under the shade of a bush- now such sighting is impossible, too many cars, too much dust, the place is too crowded.

Anyway, since we try to camp in the most remote places in the Kalahari, such intimate encounters with wildlife-in this case lions-are still possible from time to time. Something strange is happening to me lately, I often fail to press the shutter button for fear that such precious moments-of awe, of the unreal-might dissipate.