African Wild Cat

[Chris van Rooyen]

I captured this male early one winter morning at a waterhole in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. About 30% crop, processed in LR and PS CC.

Camera Model: NIKON D5
Date/Time: 2017:08:10 08h15
Shutter speed: 1/2500 sec
Aperture: 6.3
Exposure mode: Manual
Exposure compensation: +1/3
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 1000
Lens: 500.0 mm f/4.0 with 1.4x
Focal length: 700mm

[Marc Mol]

Great eye contact in winter light here Chris, judging by the reddish nose, still quite young, and to get relatively close to this rarely seen skittish cat is commendable.

Nicely done.

TFS

[John Mack]

This is spot on. Nice pose with nice details and nice light. Looks like a house cat to me. I have never heard of one or seen one.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Chris -- What a superb portrait of this cat, not easy to get so close and in good light. Looks slightly strong on contrast , reducing it might bring out more finer details. Loved the clean bkg.

Nicely done. TFS !

[Chris van Rooyen]

This is spot on. Nice pose with nice details and nice light. Looks like a house cat to me. I have never heard of one or seen one.

Hi John, the African Wildcat (Felis lybica) is indeed the ancestor of the domestic cat (Felis catus). They are distinguished from their domestic cousins by their longer legs. These cats were first domesticated about 10 000 years ago in the Middle East. One of the biggest threats to the species is cross-breeding with domestic cats. Thanks for the comments on the image.

For more details on the species see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wildcat

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Chris ...indeed a great portrait of this skittish cat .
Stunning light and those warm colors are looking very nice .
A bit more DOF would have not hurt the image ... where was the FP ? From my POV there is small fall off in sharpness to the nose and whiskers , the fine hairs in the ears appear a bit sharper .
Agree with Haseeb about the strong contrast .... or i would say more the blacks are a tiny bit too strong .... IMHO .

TFS Andreas

[Gabriela Plesea]

Good evening Chris,

Thank you for sharing this lovely image of a very precious and rather skittish species, I truly appreciate it.

Over the years I found it more and more difficult to spot and photograph wild cats and inclined to blame this on the increasing number of visitors in the Park. In 2009 I had fifteen wild cat sightings, in 2012 twelve, then eight sightings in 2014, six in 2016, one in 2017... none in 2018. Hope it's just bad luck... but cannot help thinking there's just too much traffic in the Kgalagadi lately ( I too am part of the problem) so wildlife is moving further and further away from the busy roads. Especially those beautiful cats whom I used to spot in the fork of a tree by the road, usually facing the river beds and so well concealed, their colours matching almost perfectly the bark of the camel thorn trees

Back to your image, it is well framed and I think pretty well exposed too. Techs look good and the most important features - eyes and nose - look sharp IMO. I notice some areas - above the L eye and on the edge of the L ear where a degree of detail is missing, not sure what caused it. Colours look good, if you like you could reduce the blues a bit.

Overall a lovely frame and POV is great, wonderful eye contact. Enjoyed viewing, hope luck is on my side and I get to photograph one of those lovely creatures in March, I will be camping at Mata Mata and then Polenstwa and Rooiputs...

Really looking forward to see more from the Kgalagadi if you have ( I am sure you do...)

Kind regards,