Tiger with kill

[Sabyasachi Patra]

This is from this years Bandhavgarh trip. Photographed this in Mirchahani area. He caught a cheetal fawn and started feeding it behind a bush. It was tough to get its eyes clear as the wind was rustling the leaves and the tiger was also moving its head. Light was low and constantly chaning and it was tough to do manual focussing. I got this shot when the tiger pulled a chunk from the leg piece and that moved the grass away from its eyes.

ISO 400, Canon EF 400mm f2.8 L IS USM, EF 2xII ie. at 800mm, f5.6, 1/100 sec, full frame, Mirror Lock up.

Look forward to your comments.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Harshad Barve]

Great Stuff

Sirjee mera number kab aayega

Harshad

[Kiran Ghadge]

thats wonderful image, lovely moment, I wish some more part of prey were visible...nevertheless this is amazing frame.
the contrast and sharpness can be more

[Mrudul Godbole]

Hi Sabyasachi,

That are quite difficult conditions to photograph. You have done a decent job.The leg of the deer is visible, so gives an idea that it is with a kill. Nice eye contact.

[AB Apana]

This works well. No nits here.

Apana

[Kiran Khanzode]

Sabyasachi,
A beautiful moment witnessed and captured in tough conditions.
I have noticed that you always have the 2x on your 400. Would it have been any better with AF at 2.8 ? Am sure your lens is very capable in low light AF.

I personally remove my 2x tele (from the 300 2.8 IS) when the light gets low, pray to God that something fills up the frame :-)... and try to use the full 2 stops of light to my advantage/as-when possible. And yes, then a crop has to happen :-).

Regards,
Kiran

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Kiran,
Welcome back Kiran! Look forward to your recent images.

Light was terrible. I used manual focus as there were lots of grass and the AF would pickup one or the other. The tigers eyes were hidden with grass. So I was only clicking whenever there was a movement of the grass either by breeze or due to the tiger moving its head or the leg of the fawn. I didn't want to miss a split second scene. So my lens was on manual focus mode and I used to click with minor adjustments.

The speed of focus acquisition always decreases if you use a TC. That is true for every lens. With the 300 f2.8 and 400 f2.8 the AF speed decreases but not much.

Also you may have noticed that I was using Mirror Lock up. I focussed behind the grass and a slight movement won't be an issue with the focus as the dof was sufficient to take care of it.

I normally don't crop my images. I had picked up the habit of cropping after looking at photos in various internet forums. After about a year of cropping I decided that I am better off composing images in the field. I love the quality of this lens at f2.8 and have used it number of times at that aperture. One of the reasons, why I don't change the converters much is because I fear the dust. My 1 DII doesn't have a dust removal system. :-( I guess it is time to pick up a new body.

In the mornings and evenings, my camera is always with the 400 mm f2.8 mode. In this case, I didn't remove the 2x because the grass and vegetation were appearing distracting at the 400mm end. I wish that I always photograph with the 400mm without converters.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[GSR Reddy]

Sabyasachi,

A very nice image. it is very difficult to capture a kill accurately in our jungles because of dense vegetation, however u have got enough detail which is commendable.

Ramesh