Technical: Canon 1D4, 70-200 @ 70mm, f/6.3, 1/250s, ISO 400.
I made this image on the very last game drive of my Tanzania trip earlier this year. It was an amazing drive both for the sighting and the incredible light we were treated to.
Technical: Canon 1D4, 70-200 @ 70mm, f/6.3, 1/250s, ISO 400.
I made this image on the very last game drive of my Tanzania trip earlier this year. It was an amazing drive both for the sighting and the incredible light we were treated to.

Lovely scene, well captured.
The light was surely great here! Nicely framed too, Aravind.
I felt that the FG and midground were a tad bright for the conditions with the sun just peeping through the gloomy clouds. I used a bit of selective dodging and burning here - curious to know what you think?
Thanks Morkel. I have been debating how much contrast to have in the foreground and middleground and went back and forth during processing. Darkening the foreground and middleground is probably a good idea but it reduces the contrast too much for my taste, I wanted the Wildebeast to 'jump' out.
mmhmm, I feel you, since I love my contrast as much as the next guy. I was just concerned that the contrast in the OP might be robbing you of details in the WB (at least at this resolution). Maybe taking my repost and adding back some midtone contrast? Don't have time to play with it now...but just throwing it out there...great capture in any case...![]()
Thanks Morkel, I'll play around with it some more.
Aravind,
Really nice image. I like both your and Morkel's repost. The area around the sun is pretty saturated, which is unavoidable. Did you try and recover any of the highlights in the raw conversion? Or do you have a second image with a shorter exposure to create an HDR around the sun area? That would help bring the image over the top in my opinion if you could recover some highlights and reduce the size of the fully saturated region, for an already impressive image.
Roger
Thanks Roger. The highlights have already been recovered to the maximum extent allowable. Unfortunately this was shot hand held from the top of the safari vehicle while it was in motion (we couldn't stop because were already running late to get out of the park before sunset (and the drivers/guides get fined if caught in the park after sunset)). Yes, in ideal circumstances I would have a second or even third exposure to do some HDR. Its a lesson learned for a future safari, especially when shooting with a camera with a high FPS (capture bracketed bursts for HDR in cases like this).
This was taken on March 12th of this year. It was the last day we were there and there was a pretty spectacular storm. I'm not exactly sure of the area (didn't have a GPS with me) but it was in the Central Serengeti.
Aravind,
Very nice image![]()
A very dramatic image, love it![]()
Hi Aravind,
I like your image and the clouds really do add to the atmosphere.
With many thanks,
Mark.
Very well done indeed
TFS