Praveen Siddannavar
30-01-2012, 12:28 PM
Just got back from a 3 day trip to Kabini (Nagarahole Forest), the forest was at its best with lots of winter migratory birds, plenty of elephants at the river bank that included a huge tusker that charged at us like mad, a spotted deer with probably a week old fawn was another wonderful moment, had 5 leopards sightings that including a mating couple and last but not the least a tigress too was in the list of sightings that too 10 minutes before we were ending 6th and last safari ride. All in all a wonderful trip it was.
The highlight was a natural history moment of leopards mating on a tree, this is the second time I have been lucky to see leopards mating the first one was at Bandipur with some records shots and now at Kabini that too on a tree was just unbelievable.
On 28th Jan'12 (Saturday), there was too must mist than normal, we entered the hosakere tank gate and within minutes we spotted a cat walking on the game track. Due to mist it was first difficult to spot if it was a tiger or a leopard. My first few images went blank, my friend too could'nt get a single image, despite having Nikon 400mm f2.8 prime lens. After couple of minutes I was lucky to get few images that I thought of sharing since we don't often get opportunities to shoot in such beautiful settings. This was a male leopard that had made a kill and had come to hosakere tank water hole to drink water, you can notice that his tummy is full.
The leopard walked on the game track for a minute and moved in the dense area and provided me only one opportunity by looking towards us. Later he walked up to tree and scratched the tree trunk with his claws, typically behavior of cats for marking their territory. I will also share these images soon. Later he became invisible in the thick mist and disappeared like ghost in a haunted place.
Experts do we over-expose or under expose images in such thick/dense misty conditions. Pl advice. In this image I have over-exposed and few images of the same pose that are with EC zero, I will share it for comparision
Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm
Av 4
Tv 1/40
ISO 1600
EC + 0.7:confused1:
Focal length 500
Full frame
Jeep's roof top rod support
Date and Time : 28th Jan'12 @ 6:50am
The highlight was a natural history moment of leopards mating on a tree, this is the second time I have been lucky to see leopards mating the first one was at Bandipur with some records shots and now at Kabini that too on a tree was just unbelievable.
On 28th Jan'12 (Saturday), there was too must mist than normal, we entered the hosakere tank gate and within minutes we spotted a cat walking on the game track. Due to mist it was first difficult to spot if it was a tiger or a leopard. My first few images went blank, my friend too could'nt get a single image, despite having Nikon 400mm f2.8 prime lens. After couple of minutes I was lucky to get few images that I thought of sharing since we don't often get opportunities to shoot in such beautiful settings. This was a male leopard that had made a kill and had come to hosakere tank water hole to drink water, you can notice that his tummy is full.
The leopard walked on the game track for a minute and moved in the dense area and provided me only one opportunity by looking towards us. Later he walked up to tree and scratched the tree trunk with his claws, typically behavior of cats for marking their territory. I will also share these images soon. Later he became invisible in the thick mist and disappeared like ghost in a haunted place.
Experts do we over-expose or under expose images in such thick/dense misty conditions. Pl advice. In this image I have over-exposed and few images of the same pose that are with EC zero, I will share it for comparision
Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm
Av 4
Tv 1/40
ISO 1600
EC + 0.7:confused1:
Focal length 500
Full frame
Jeep's roof top rod support
Date and Time : 28th Jan'12 @ 6:50am