Cooling off

[Mrudul Godbole]

Photographed this in Ranthambore Zone 3. The tigress crossed the road and came and sat in a small water hole with her back towards us. The rocks in front of her were blocking, but that was the only view available. Took this image when she turned to see who was watching her. Luckily we were the only jeep there, so could photograph her peacefully without much disturbance.

Canon 50D, 100-400mm L IS USM, ISO 400, f8, 1/100, hand held, full frame.

Comments and Critiques welcome.

[Bibhav Behera]

The stare is nice. The image feels a bit washed out to me. Did you recover highlights a lot?
Wish the rock in the foreground were absent. Good that you got to photograph her in peace. Thanks for sharing.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Good shot. Nice eye contact. I don't find the rock too distracting here, though it would have been better if it didn't hide the tiger's leg. I would prefer a little more contrast. Overall a great image.
TFS

[Sabyasachi Patra]

The eye contact is nice. It was a against the light scene. In such situations, your lens loses contrast. The only issue in such situations when a tiger is in water is the light reflecting from the wet portions of the body. It becomes difficult to control it. One needs to increase the black point, but it becomes touch and go as slightly more and you clip the blacks in the face which is in shade. The image is sharp despite handholding at the slow 1/100 shutter speed. I don't mind the rocks as both the foreground and background rock appear like natural barriers.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Lovely image Mrudul. Good eye contact, the head turn and stare is nice. The whiskers too have come out well, she seems quite relaxed.
tfs

[Nikhilesh Mahakur]

Nice capture, eye contact is nice.
I feel a bit more space in front would make the composition nice.
Something with processing the image seems diff, probably the highlights.