I created this image this past Tuesday in the Kruger National Park. We had the most wonderful sighting.
As we left the rustic camp we were staying in (no electricity, small, lions roaring all night - the way we like it) at about 06h30am, we saw 4 hyenas next to the road. This was the one morning where the horizon was overcast, so the lovely golden sun (which was rising at this time) was hidden, making it quite dark.
Suddenly we saw that there was a leopard up in the tree next to the car, holding the remains of a kill. Things just happened so fast from here: she dropped the kill, and leaped out of the tree to scamper off into the bush, and the hyenas started a raucous, fighting for the spoils and making those haunting noises they always make - laughing and jeering and kicking up dust.
The light available made this very challenging - and that coupled with my Canon 1000D's slow continuous drive (1.5 fps) and the quality of my ISO 1600 shots made me hope that anything will come from these shots at all! I set exposure compensation to +0.7 to make sure I minimised noise @ ISO 1600, and this created a shutter speed challenge. I panned the action and luckily they were next to the car.
This is one of the shots I got as the two hyenas fought for the meat. The one on the left is considerably larger and eventually came out tops - got some more pics to show!
Your comments, suggestions and critiques are most welcome, as always!
Techs:
Canon 1000D with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 130mm focal length
f5.0 @ 1/100 SS @ ISO 1600
Exp +0.7
Now why dont I see this type of action when Im in Kruger. The story and the action makes up for any lack of quality light, and you have done exceptionally well under the circumstances. Great capture mate.
thanks for the great feedback Stu, Ken, Peter & David.
@ Ken - I don't mind that kind of thing when it adds to the image, in this case I'm not sure it will as the tree reminds me of the proximity of the action. Besides the BG is very busy and cloning it out so as to be unnoticeable will take many hours :)
@ Stu - yeah I am very pleased with how this came out, and this is the first sighting of the sorts I've had this close to the car in more than 20 years of visiting Kruger annually, so it's out there :). What's also frustrating is, as I mentioned, every other morning the light was glorious by this time
I changed the white balance to 'cloudy' in ACR since it was in fact cloudy, which brought out a warmer tone.
the 2 Hyenas really are different in colour, the one on the right is also considerably larger. it struck me as we were witnessing it as well.
here is the photo as shot straight out of camera...
Last edited by Morkel Erasmus; 08-01-2009 at 12:01 PM.
Morkel, it seems you made wise choices for the challenging light conditions available, and you walked away with a very nice action shot. Very well done.
Morkel,
Did a few changes and reposting. You would be able to do better with your Raw file. The inclusion of the tree canopy at the top and the trees in the background adds to the story. I would have loved more space at the right, but cropped to remove the twig at the bottom. Look forward to more images from this series.
thanks for the comments guys, and for the time taken to repost Sabya.
I have taken your comp suggestion and reworked the shot. I left the right twig in there to keep the space (since that area is in focus I don't want to meddle with cloning which will look too messy too easily).
Scrap for the Spoils
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