Cheetah on the Serengeti Plains

[Andy Biggs]

Canon 5DMkII, 600mm f/4, 1/800 @ f/4, ISO 50
Serengeti National Park, March 2010

[Steve Kaluski]

Like the wide angle on this Andy. The horizon cutting through is just there IMHO. It has a very delicate feel about it, possibly down to the size of objects and overall content contained in it.

TFS
Steve

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

Andy, what a view! Can only imagine what it's like to actually be standing there in person. Like it for sure, very close on the horizon ;perhaps a bit more of separation would be ideal, but hey it's a winner!
Don

[Hilary Hann]

Andy, I have always admired your black and white work, you have an excellent touch. This is very pleasing and I like the DOF and how it has enhanced the grasses.

One question, noticed the 5Dmk2, I thought you had moved to Nikon?

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the comp here, the vastness of the habitat is very apparent. The B/W conversion has made it a bit hard to tell what the objects in the horizon are (a couple of Gnus, or other??). Perhaps it is easier to tell in colour...

[Grant Atkinson]

Hi Andy, loved the sense of space, and your use of DOF. Keep these great shots coming.
Cheers
Grant

[peter delaney]

Beautifully presented, lovely delicate feel to image. Just the right amount of burning to sky. I do find my eye be drawn a bit to the OOF termite mounds in BKG , but not enough to distract from subject...

looking forward to more

Peter

[Daniel Cadieux]

...to the OOF termite mounds in BKG

Well that answers my question!:)

[Rachel Hollander]

Andy - I really like the feel of this. The conversion works well.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

elegant and poignant Andy...looking forward to more!

[Harshad Barve]

excellent image , liked this very much as posted
TFS

[Andy Biggs]

Thank you for the kind comments and critique everybody. Much appreciated. I thought about removing the termite mounds from the scene, but that goes beyond my own personal boundary of what I will do to a photograph.

Hilary, that is a great observation! I did, indeed switch to Nikon about 18 months ago. Here is what I wrote on my blog about this photograph:

As many readers of this blog may already know, 1) I don't shoot with Canon gear any longer, and 2) didn't even take a digital camera with me to Tanzania last month. So let me explain the image above. We were out on a morning game drive, and we came across this cheetah mother on the open plains. One of my generous travelers, Ben, quickly loaned me his 600mm lens on a 5D Mark II camera body, as he had a great opportunity to photograph the above female as she was moving her week-old cubs by her mouth. The 600mm was waaaaaaay too much lens for this, as she was passing only a few meters in front of our vehicle. The 'real' shot of this type of behavior was with his 100-400mm lens, and I just took his 600mm lens in the hope that she would get up on a termite mound at some point. Well, she certainly did it for me, and I ripped off a couple of quick shots. I haven't written about this before, but none of my 6x24cm panorama film worked out. It is a long and heartbreaking story for me, but the short story is that there must have been some damage to the helical focusing mechanism during transport to Africa. So at the end of my 3 weeks of safari in Tanzania I only ended up with 1 photograph that I will be able to show. I kind of have to laugh about it, because I know that I am out on safari so often that it doesn't really matter. It would massively upset me if I only go on safari once in a lifetime.

So here you have it: a cheetah on a termite mound, taken with somebody else's camera. I do have a ton of video from the safari, though. Maybe I should learn how to use Final Cut Pro.

[Hilary Hann]

Thanks Andy for the explanation. Will you try again with the panorama camera?

[Andy Biggs]

I am not sure if I am going to try again, but it is likely. All I need to do is use it as my 3rd camera and not check the camera in my main luggage!

[Hilary Hann]

There's a lesson in that ... cameras have no place in the hold! :D

[Andy Biggs]

...isn't that the truth! It is funny if you think about it, because I spend so darned much time out there that I can laugh about not having any photographs after 3 weeks worth of work!