Red Hartebeest (Mountain Zebra National Park)

[Morkel Erasmus]

Since Grant and Peter have posted images from this lovely little park, I thought I would too. This was captured during our trip in April 2011.

The main camp is situated in between rising mountains, and this background is typical of what the terrain looks like when you drive up to the plateau from the camp. We didn't see the cheetahs during our trip - but had quite a few fleeting aardwolf sightings (see Peter Delaney's earlier post to see an aardwolf).

Techs:
Canon 40D with 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM @ 80mm
f8.0 @ 1/250 SS @ ISO-400
Captured mid-morning (08h39)

[Steve Kaluski]

The unmistakable horns gives this animal away instantly.

Would like to have seen this a fraction bigger Morkel and perhaps, a little/hint more saturation applied to the grassland & HB? I also feel it is a little too central and a move to the right might have helped, or just reduce the amount in cropping, but it's the sloping horizon where the ground meets the base of the mountain that catches my eye sadly. Not sure how much you have frame wise, as a CW 3.3 addresses that, but you need a lot of room around your subject.

TFS
Steve

[peter delaney]

Hi Morkel..

Sorry with Steve on this one...

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks for your thoughts, Steve and Peter.

(Peter, as you know) This place is just undulating all over the place, so I tried to rotate so the hartebeest looks like its standing level with its feet in the same plane.

I see your point, though, Steve. Here is a repost with some saturation applied and a slight CCW rotation - not sure you meant CW as it made the hills stand out even more?
I framed the OP and the repost so the head and eye fall solidly on the ROT vertical line. Adding more space on LHS is tricky if I want to keep the head on the strong point.

Mostly posted this as it gives a nice view of the settings in which one can photograph in this park...

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Morkel, I think that by all means use rules to aid the image and if it enhances/strengthens the compositions then great, but for me it really doesn't work as it's not that evident IMHO. Sadly now with the repost and the CCW rotation the incline is even more evident and i just keep getting drawn to it. Agree my crop is not ideal, but a CW rotation does at least address the main issue I feel and is almost identical to yours when the RoTs is applied.

cheers
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks Steve.

Thanks for the repost - to me the hartebeest is now standing 'downward forward' which is not how I remember the scene.

I get what you're saying re the incline - and it is interesting to see how others view these things. I tend to gauge images based on whether the subject (animal) is standing level, if they're standind perpendicular to the viewer (obviously with my own images I would know whether the animal was standing on an incline, but with others' images I try to ask what the topography was like to better understand the context of the image). In this case the incline is very steep in the BG - but I know that in the scene it was in fact a steep incline on a mountainside. Trying to level the image based on that will not reflect what I recall as being the scene. The hartebeest was standing on a very flat stretch, and therefore I gauged the 'level' by trying to keep the hartebeest standing 'level'. But I do agree that others may find the inclines distracting as you did now.

I will have to look if there was more space on the RAW file as I processed this a while ago and only reworked the large JPG for the quick repost.

[Steve Canuel]

Great BG here Morkel. OP looks most natural to my eye as far as slopes and animal position. Like how its horns are pointing up the slope.