Okay so the December Project 'Predator & Prey' was meant for bird photos. But for us Southerners it is the middle of Summer, so current photos are out. So I thought I would instead post a Winter photo of a Serval and its prey.
After three days of howling cold winds and gloomy overcast conditions in the Eastern Cape of South Africa I finally got to see the sun while visiting Shamwari Game reserve.
After several days of poor hunting, all the animals were suddenly visible. I saw lion, cheetah, leopard and serval in one morning's game drive. For me the highlight was a hunting serval. I was able to watch this most beautiful cat for more than 20 minutes while it hunted for rodents. Servals hunting by sound (and sight) - fixing the position of their prey and then leaping onto their victim. Mostly they are after rodents - but can also jump high after birds.
While we watched the serval caught four rodents - all swallowed quite quickly. But I did manage to get one photo as the serval posed with a rodent in its mouth. Wonderful cat.
Tech Details:
Canon EOS 40D + 100-400 zoom @ 340mm ; 1/640th ; f10 ; ISO 400
I agree wonderful looking animal. I realize that you have a lot working against you under such circumstances but I feel this image would be better if either at a lower point of view or the cat had its head up more.
Also, the rear of the cat is loped off rather awkwardly. I would crop this more as a vertical at the center of the body. In the field you could have zoomed out and included the back half.
Agree with Roberts critique, one of the big advantages of useing a zoom. Would also suggest trading some f-stop for ss, you also limit your dof and isolate the subject better. Nicely seen.
TFS
Todd
Phil, must have been a wonderful 20 mins watching this cat. Agree with previous comments. Am seeing some loss of detail around the servals head and in patches of the fur, not sure why that is. Is this FF?
Thanks everyone for your comments - much appreciated.
Hilary I am not quite sure why the head looks a bit fuzzy. The original is very sharp. I think something goes wrong when I reduce the file size to get within BPN's 200kb parameter.
I have tried a different method with the repost to try to get more sharpness in the photo and have also re-cropped as Robert suggests. When I took the original it was quite tricky getting all the serval in the viewfinder as its moves about so much (i.e. photographer error). Plus, of course, I always go a bit to pieces when I am so excited by a brilliant cat viewing!
Todd I do play around with different shutter speeds and apertures - but am always a bit scared to go too much one way or the other. My sharpness skills are not great (why do we all have to measure up to our guru, Mr Morris - cannot some of us have lesser targets ? :)) and low depth of field often leaves me wanting more sharpness in critical area. Always a difficult trade off.
repost does look better Phil...I have only had one quick serval sighting in my entire life, and there were no photo opps to speak of, so well done in getting this! the image quality issues I see in the OP has been negated in the repost, although it does look like the light conditions could have been more favourable.
I have been quite lucky with Servals - have seen quite a few now with good sightings in Botswana, Sabi Sands and E.Cape. The cat I am missing is the Caracal. So I will just have to keep on getting out there to find one.