Cross Tail.

[Suraj Sreedhar]

Cross tail Gowris male cub.
Bandipur Tiger Reserve March-13-2012.
It took almost 4 years for me to see a tiger in Bandipur,but when i saw it was not just a tiger it were tigers.6 tigers in a single safari.1 male,1 female(Gowri) & her 4 cubs.
Av f 5.6
ISO 200.
Tv 1/320s.
Focal Length 225mm.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Congratulations on your first sighting!

It is always a nice feeling to watch a tiger.

Frankly speaking this image reminded me of an image that I had clicked a decade earlier in bandhavgarh when the tigress snarled and crossed the road. The snarl was not captured sharply, as the shutter speed was low. I don't forget the images that I missed capturing or those that are not upto my liking.

Was the vehicle rolling when you clicked? A higher shutter speed would have been good. Where was the focus point? Which focus point were you using? I presume you were handholding.

The reason I ask for information on amount of crop and which direction the crop is because that will help visualising the situation better so that we can provide effective critiques. The more data you provide, better will be the critiques and faster will be your learning.

[Suraj Sreedhar]

After doing almost 50 safaries in bandipur,this was my 1st tiger sighting.That too 5 together my hands started shivering.The jeep was not moving,but was not stable.As i came to know that its better to use manul ISO in my previous post,i had kept the ISO at 200 & forgot to change it.The af point was on its shoulder (front leg).Image was clicked handheld.The image was cropped from right bottom,about 30%.

Thanks for the Reply.

[V S Sankar]

Fantastic first sighting and pic of a wild tiger!This is simply awsome.I for one havnt seen a tiger in the wild yet.I can understand the excitement of seeing a wild one for the first time.Very nice pic and the expression is very nice.I hope you got many other pics from your sighting.Good work.

Regards

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Wow Suraj, 5 tigers on first sighting... can't get beter than that.Hope u enjoyed the moment and didnt forget to celebrate .You will get more chances and will be able to make much beter images but the first sighting will remain very special.

TFS
Roopak

[Mrudul Godbole]

Congrats on the first sighting. Its really a great feeling to sight a tiger in the wild for the first time. I remember I didn't photograph for the whole day in Bandhavgarh even if I sighted tigers in both morning and evening safari, I was just watching. I still remember that sighting :). Nice to see that this male cub is doing well. Look forward to more. Thanks for sharing.

[Deepak Ramani]

Lovely image. I like to composition of this image. Nice eye contact. The blurred right foot in fact gives a nice impression of movement and I like it very much. I can understand the excitement of the first tiger sighting since I had it very recently as well. Congrats and all the best for the future. Any images from the mother + 4 cubs sighting.
BTW, cross tail seems to be growing quite healthy. I guess these cubs have another 3-4 months max with their mom before they have to go independent. Will be interesting to see how they turn out.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Congratulations Suraj Bhai.Nice staring documented.
I started wandering in the forests in 1970 and only during my visit to the fifth jungle in 1975,I could see the first tiger in the wild.This is the beauty of Indian forests and the tiger.You will see many of them at intervals in future.Good that the male cub is recuperating but it will take time.
You have seen a male tiger.Was it close to Gouri's broad territory?Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Lovely image Suraj and many congrats on your first tiger image at bandipur. Hope your counts keep increasing steadily. Its a nice walking pose captured. Just as what Saktida has written even in my case I saw my first tiger in the early nineties on my 3rd trip to corbett. The thrill is unparallel. One can never forget the first experience and I am sure your heart must still be thumping whenever your remember your first encounter. Thanks for sharing!!!

[Suraj Sreedhar]

@ Deepak Ramani
Sir,we could see only 3 cubs as the 4th one was behind the bushes.I could click 3 cubs playing with their mom(Gowri).But the image was not sharp as it was out of reach for my lens.And my 1st sight of tiger was the 3cubs playing with their mom,my hands were shivering.

The Folks said that Gowri had left her cubs alone for 7-8 alone and only came back on that day.At that time too Gowri was not happy and kept on growling at her cubs & walking away from them.

@ Saktipada Panigrahi
I could just click a record shot of the male tige as it disappeared from a water hole on our approach.The male was close to the place(less than a km) where we saw the cubs & Gowri.
After almost 50 safaries in bandipur without seeing tiger,Only on this trip i saw 6 tigers on the same safari.Till now its like a dream for me..............

Thaks for the Reply.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Suraj,
Addressing a person by name will do. No need to add the @ sign before someone's name. It makes it impersonal. Personally, I relate the @ sign with price of goods like a bag of potatoes.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Bhargava Srivari]

Suraj,

Many congratulations :) Good that you saw several tigers. I like the look of the cub very much. Sometimes, it is not needed to be upset at not getting satisfactory images; I'm sure you'll get lots of good images soon. Just relish in the sighting :)

tfs

[Anand Madabhushi]

I was just wondering in one of my own posts .....male..female and cubs...as though the cubs are gender less :-) It may be that in some animals it takes quite some time to ascertain the gender. When I took my 4-6 weeks old pet rabbit (named Vodka) the vet told me that it was difficult to ascertain the gender but thought it was female....few months later I realised Vodka is male.