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Dipankar Mazumdar
20-03-2009, 03:57 PM
Tiger stalking a cheetal, concealing itself under the palm.
Ranthambhore national Park.
LUMIX FZ18+ TCON 17 TELECONVERTOR
F/4, 1/100, ISO 100,

Ranbir Mahapatra
20-03-2009, 06:48 PM
Dipankar. What can I possibly say?

First, my imagination went into overdrive reading the caption. Then I opened the image. I could not spot the Cheetal; and for a moment even the Tiger. The large shrub being positioned at one cross-section of the rule of third, automatically drew my eyes. The image I bet was taken in a lot of excitement.

And then I saw the "blink & you miss" black stripe against yellow. Probably the sexiest rear I have seen for a long time!! I imagined for two glorious moment, the taut tiger and perhaps dangling tail!

I wish you had begged, borrowed or stolen and somehow got a 600mm f5.6 lens with you at this particular moment.

Dipankar, I share your thrill, I share your emotions and I wish all our fellow members to somehow have a great lens when they witness the tiger stalking. And lastly, we need to improve our techniques for this sort of occasions!

Dipankar Mazumdar
21-03-2009, 10:07 AM
Dear Ranbir,
We were in Ranthambhore the last weekend and in our last safari in zone 4 we spend about 45 minutes with this pair of sub adult tiger siblings, a male and a female.They both were gracious enough to pose for us and bear with our intrusion to the extent that they ganged up to stalk this cheetal doe from two different angles.Our presence alerted the Cheetal and it sounded the call which was taken up by the others in the herd.The tiger stayed motionless for about 15 minutes, only its tail twitching, however it realised that the doe was too faraway and beyond this solitary palm that gave cover, it was an absolute open land and hence gave up the stalk.The moment it got up, all hell broke loose and Chitals bounded off in all directions.

When i planned this picture, I thought about composing the picture so that the focus was on the cheetal and an unfocused tiger was in the foreground. But from the point where our jeep was, the Chital was in line with the clump of grass you see in the middle and there was no way i could focus on it at this kind of focal length. When i zoomed in, i could get perfectly focused pictures of the doe but the tiger was out of the frame. I took a lot of pictures of the tiger in this posture aswell as the chital, but getting the two togather was impossible.

yes i admit the title of the picture is a little misleading and creates visions before the picture is opened and one tends to be dissapointed to see the results but it makes you search for the subjects....!!!!!!

BTW.....i was shooting with a FZ18+TCON17 with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 512 x 1.7= 870mm, so no shortage there, my partner was shooting with a EOS 1d mark II + 100-400 F4.5/ 5.6 IS USM and he could not get the ideal composition either. That is the glorious uncertainity of the forest...!!!!!!

Cheers
Dipankar

Ranbir Mahapatra
21-03-2009, 09:54 PM
Actually the title is not misleading. I guess its a caption that sums up your point of view at the time. And being the artist here, you have full right on it.

I am bewitched by your account of the tiger siblings though! I am sure it would have been a treat to watch the duo stalk the cheetal.

Which brings me to composition. It is tough to get a great shot all the time. Ideal situations are rare in the forest. And I guess your challenge was not exactly mitigated by your position. Though I am still a foetus:D in my qualification of being a photographer, its always challenging to shoot a complete action image (with all protagonists intact) than a portrait.

An image freezes a moment. A great image drives the onlookers imagination beyond those frozen frames. A great image always has a story to tell. I am excited about the photograph because I felt there was a story behind it. It surely reminded me of Jim Corbett's account of the tigers of Kumaon!


In the meantime, enjoy this superb shot by Sabyasachi:

http://www.indiawilds.com/ITEM_DETAIL.php?rowNo=33&cat_id=1&item_id=30&cat_name=Tiger
Your visualization of how you wanted to compose the image is commendable. I hope you get to freeze your imagination next time for sure!