These two were walking slowly through the water towards me from the far bank when for some unknown reason they started to run. I suspect the lead hippo was its young and it was just playing "chase me". It was certainly a lot smaller and full of energy.
Canon 1Dmk3, 1/1600, f6.3 ISO200, 500mm
C&C welcome.
Thanks for looking.
Austin
Last edited by Austin Thomas; 11-30-2008 at 04:15 PM.
Reason: Repost added
Austin,
This is a lovely image. You managed to freeze the action well. The depth of field is also sufficient to cover the two. The splashes of water makes this image powerful - I especially like the splashes made by the hippo at the front. I would have loved a little bit more canvas at the bottom, just because of the excellent splashes.
Would you mind telling us why you used ISO 200? Normally, I find people with Mark III and D3 using higher ISO than 200. I find the shutter speed and dof adequate but would like to know your thoughts. Excellent image. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi
PS: This reminded me of the book I had grown up reading The Maneaters of Tsavo by J. H. Patterson. I remember the amount of fear and respect he had for these hippos.
Sabyasachi, I tend to keep the ISO as low as possible provided I have enough shutter speed. There was no shortage of light and I had in the back of my mind that some of the images captured during my trip may be printed, so I adjusted the ISO downwards on occasions. On this particular sequence, I took a few frames of them earlier when they were walking in the water so I would have had time to check exposure and shutter speed and made the decision that I could improve the quality by reducing the ISO. Then they started to run when this image was captured. All over in seconds and back to walking again.
What a nice action image, Austin! I agree with Sabyasachi that a bit more room up front of the baby hippo would have been nice - it does feel a little tight up front. I also think the eye on the back hippo seems a little bit softer than the rest of his face - you might want to look at doing a selective focus and see if that makes any difference.
The rest of the composition is very nice and you did a great job freezing the water with your choice of shutter speed.
What a delightful image, the expression on the young one is precious!
I'd love to have had more space at the bottom, for the virtual feet and for them to run into.
I went back to the raw file and had another go at converting this image. I increased the canvas at the bottom with a different crop, nudged the sharpening up half a turn and corrected a slight yellow/green colour cast that I was seeing on second glance.
Here is the repost. Please let me know if you think it is an improvement or not.
Austin,
The repost is much better. It has the space at the front so it doesn't feel constraining. You have also reduced some space from the top and that is good. The colour also seems to be natural not warmed up. Good job.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi