Quenching thirst despite crazy photographers and tourists

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Bandipur Tiger Reserve, India

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, Canon EF 400mm f2.8 L IS USM, EF 2xII TC, ISO 4000, f5.6, 1/1250, full frame image, handheld.

It was a tough situation to photograph. The tigress and cubs had to drink water. Our jeep driver had called up others over phone about the sighting and another jeep and a bus arrived there. The guys in our jeep were excited. And on top of that photographers from the other jeep climbed onto our jeep and it was rocking like a boat. I had to climb on top of the jeep to click this handheld.

Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

Lovely eye contact and details. Nice composition. Its good you used a higher shutter speed, as with the commotion going on, it has helped. The side lighting gives a nice effect. Thanks for sharing.

[Atul Sinai]

Nice composition. Loved the eye contact.

800mm handheld with a heavy lens seems challenging, would love to try it out someday.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Atul,
It is not easy to handhold the 400mm f2.8 L IS USM lens. At 5.3kgs it is heaviest in the Canon's line up. One can handhold it for a second or two. When I fix the 2xII TC in this lens, the added weight and the weight distribution makes life miserable while handholding. In this case, I myself was standing on the seat head rest and it was really tough. I had my tripod, however with the vehicle rocking like a boat, it is a miracle that I got a few shots.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Kaustuv Chatterjee]

Good light and nice highlight on the eye....must have been quite a physical feat for you to get this shot clean!

[V S Sankar]

This pic reminds me of the photo of Juhurjura tigress you have posted in 2008.

Its nice to see pic from Sabya!Wonderrful moment and good technique of hand holding and getting sharp images with a heavy lens.

Regards

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Nice image.Well composed.The angular light rays falling on a part of the body has given a little light and shade effect.Possibly B&W image will look even more attractive.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Lovely image of this Tigress, the heat is on and the animals will need to drink more often. Agree with Saktiji that monochrome may look even better.
tfs

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Lovely image Sabyasachi. Nice eye contact and the sunlight falling on the tiger enhances the image. Its appreciable that you managed to click a nice image inspite of the trying circumstances. Thanks for sharing.

[Chitrita Chatterjee]

wow...:) another stunning pic... love the play of sunlight on the body n reflection in the water...:)

[Bhargava Srivari]

Sabyasachi,

Good to see you post a tiger from bandipur. I had heard from Praveen about your sightings in bandipur. Good that the light was falling spot on the tiger. Gives a nice feeling. Monochrome may look good, but the magic of this spotlight on the tigress may subside.

Look forward to many more from this trip.

[Atul Dhamankar]

Good image, but I think its some problem with WB. Some blue cast seen in image.

[Anand Madabhushi]

Patraji, Great effort and an excellent result.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

When you are clicking images in early morning the shadow areas will appear bluish, especially when you have sunlight in part of the scene. If you try to change the overall colour temperature, then the subject which is lighted will look bad. Better to choose the colour temperature of the light which is lighting the subject.

There are people who create separate layers and use different colour temperatures on each and then merge them. Some messed up cases attempting such a scenario can be seen posted by a few members.

I wish the light had fallen on the complete face. Slightly raised head would have been lit better. The shoulder portion was lighted and the reflection was drawing my attention when I shot this.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi