Stripe Necked Mongoose x 2

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Shot this Mongoose couple at Kabini over the weekend.

Camera Model Canon EOS 40D
Shooting Date/Time 11/1/2009 8:48:04 AM
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/320
Av( Aperture Value ) 5.6
ISO Speed 800
Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Focal Length 350.0 mm

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Lovely interaction. You got them relatively in open ground. It is good that the grass infront of them does not block the face.

the light seems to be pretty low. I would have expected better light at that point of the day.

I find mongoose to be a difficult subject as far as the critical focussing is concerned. The depth of field is very important aspect here, as the coarse hair often doesn't get covered. So I would prefer a higher depth of field. In this case the focus seems to have locked into the plant just near the mongoose. The depth of field nearly covers the head.

Which focusing point were you using? Are you shooting in one shot or burst? I always use and recommend people to use AI Servo mode.

The image needs to be a bit brighter. There is a small white patch at the top which gets burnt. But you can increase the brightness by slightly less than a third of a stop and can reduce the highlights by using the tone curve in lightroom. You seem to have opened up the shadows. A slight boost in contrast will help.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Rajan Kanagasabai]

Beautiful shot Praveen

Loved the low composition. I tried to play around with your image on Lightroom Beta (thanks to Sabysachi). Opened up the lighting a bit, sharpened a few places and recovered a few blacks . . . .

Let me know your comments on the repost.

regards
Rajan

[Bibhav Behera]

Agree with Sabyasachi regarding the focus lock. The image needs to be brighter. the repost looks better but needs a slight boost in contrast.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Gentleman -Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

Rajan - The repost is excellent, I noticed that you were able to recover the details especially under the throat area and the legs, even the image is quite sharp now. Thanks for putting the efforts and giving a new look to the mongoose couple:)