Daily Photo: This is Mine

This is Mine

Madikwe Game Reserve

Nikon D300, Nikon 80-200 @ 100mm, 1/60, f/2.8, ISO 3200

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Last night we sat watching two male lions on a kill.  As it is, that makes for a fantastic sighting but as with many predator sightings, you normally find yourself shooting late in the evening as the light is disappearing – fast.  This can make for a very frustrating photography as you need to stay on top of your settings the whole time to produce sharp, quality images.  Quite a few minutes after the sun dipped below the horizon the one male started roaring right next to the wildebeest kill.  The sound has got to be one of the most spectacular sounds in all of nature.  Now as the large cat was giving it his best he moved forward creating a very interesting composition, hence the title, but with almost no light left it took quite a bit work to get the shot.  I stopped the lens down all the way to f/2.8, pushed the ISO up to 3200(!) and still had to brace the camera on the side of the vehicle to work with a 1/60 shutter speed.  I shot a series of seven images with the idea of capturing the lion’s breathe as he roared.  Didn’t get it, but considering the low light situation I am pretty chuffed with the shot.  The last bit of light falling on the lion’s nose and on the kill makes for quite a moody image and sheds light on a brutal story – Africa’s apex predator proclaiming his territory next to a recent kill.  Amazing!

To get great shots you need to think about what you are doing.  Think about composition, light and a number of other variables. If you read Chad Cocking’s guest post on Thursday you will get a pretty good idea as to some of the things that happens in your mind when you are out photographing wildlife.  It is not as simple as point and hope for the best as you need to consider everything form composition and movement to the technical abilities of your equipment and what you are going to do, or rather what you can do, with the image during post processing.  In his post Chad does a fantastic job of explaining his thought process and, by looking at various of his images, how he arrived at the final result.  A big shout out to Chad for a great post that is bound to not only inspire but also teach people a lot!  If you have not checked it out yet, go now!

Chad’s post got me thinking not only about the way people approach there wildlife images, but also the equipment they choose to use when out in the field.  It still seems that bigger is (apparently) always better.  If you believe this, then the guy with the biggest lens will always have the best image but that is most definitely not the case.  It is quite a common need to get a bigger lens when you initially start out  in wildlife photography but unfortunately it is for all the wrong reasons.  It is a cliché but it is not about the size but rather how you use it.   A little more on wildlife photography lenses and equipment at a later stage.

See ya on Monday!

Gerry