Hidden jewel | Tiger | Kabini

The second half of this year proved to be invaluable to me in terms of the tiger sightings I've had in Kabini.

After careful planning and lots of discussion, we had decided on trying a new route addition to the safari area for this particular morning safari. However, just before entering the designated area, we changed course and went straight towards the backwaters. Even after reaching backwaters, our naturalist made another quick change in the road we were to take. A minute on this Eucalyptus plantation road and the naturalist- a very senior guy and a lucky one too for me personally, Umesh- calmly said "Tiger, tiger, tiger". It took us a few seconds to know where to look and there he was- a clean, handsome male Tiger, staring at us from behind dense undergrowth. He was in all probability resting beside the road and got up to stand on hearing our jeep approach. What followed was a quick fire of some images from all our cameras and the tiger then dashed off into the thickets in a flash. We did later on manage to catch a glimpse of him again that morning, but it was so quick that there wasn't any scope for further imaging.

Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 300 f/2.8 L IS II USM + 1.4x extender III | f/4, ISO 640, 1/250 sec, EC -2/3, evaluative metering | Kabini, Karnataka | November 2012.

Nice portrait. Lovely eyes. The colour of the head is normally lighter,which possibly has not come out.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

Saktipada,

Thank you for the observation. While I would readily agree that the face of a tiger is usually paler, I would not entirely go with that opinion when it comes to tigers of Kabini. All the tigers I have seen so far in kabini have an overall more saturated coats when compared with the central Indian counterparts. On a purely personal note, I would rather go with the current color of the tiger in the image I posted because I vividly remember that the tiger looked really rich in terms of the intensity of the color. Still, I have reprocessed the image and I am posting it now. Please do let me know what you think of it.

Bhargava I fully agree with Saktipada ji. The image definitely looks over saturated, i can understand you may have not saturated it at all, probably you need to check the WB, if it was in cloudy or shade.

I have uploaded my image of the same tiger for comparison

Thanks Praveen sir. The first thing I did after Saktipada's comment was to go and see your image. If you don't mind me being honest, I think your image though very very impressive is a tad too low on saturation and does not reflect the extremely rich winter coat we saw that morning. In any case, I am open to such critique and I believe it will only help one be more attentive towards observing the actual colors during the sighting which would then help in showing colors in the images better afterwards.

Nice composition. Good eye contact. In Praveen's image the colour looks more natural. Thanks for sharing.

Nice image. Agree that the saturation is high.

Increasing the contrast also impacts the image. In situations of fog when you pull the blacks you get such looks as well. That doesn't change the colour of the tiger. As Praveen has indicated changing the white balance impacts the scene as well.

Shaktipada ji's observation reminded me about how Japanese camera companies depend upon their experts. They say even after all tests, a Japanese camera expert has a different view than the test results, they will go by the expert. The reason is tests results are limited to the questions one is seeking. Using all the information and comprehending is the job of an expert. That is why during our marketing MBA class, the professor had said for the first ten years of your life, just be in the market and observe and do analysis. Open your mouth after that to give your opinions.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Sabyasachi, that's some interesting information you have written. I will go back and look to reprocess the original again and post it tonight. However, for some reason it got imprinted on my mind that this tiger looked dark with a great winter coat that is sometimes typical to South Indian cats. *confused*