Tiger drinking

Dear All,
Before the the big guys from bandhavgarh start bombarding the forum with high quality stuff , i though I would slip in a image made over the weekend at Ranthambhore. Tigress T-19 in The Zone 2, at the morning safari.

Two mistakes here :a) Missed the focus on the shot with the tongue out.
b) Could not capture the full body or the complete oval of the ripple. Curse of the prime.
Otherwise liked the image for the diagonal entry of the tiger into a rectangular frame.

EOS 50D+ 300f4 ISL @ f8, 1/500, ISO 1600. Almost full frame with a over exposed part of the rock ledge at the bottom cropped out.

Look forward to comments.
Cheers
Dipankar

The diagonal entry of the tigeress enhances the composition. The eye contact is nice. Agree the tongue would have added more interest to the image. Thanks for sharing.

Lovely image. How come this top down angle? I agree with the composition. Where was Anu? I thought you would have snatched his 5D II. :D At such close distances you either need a 1.3 crop factor camera or a full frame camera or a 70-200 lens to get a wider composition. I am not sure if you could have moved the vehicle, as it is not always possible due to vehicles parked side by side. Wish you had got it in the morning or evening golden light. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Dear Sabyasachi,
Alas we were separated this time, Anu was in Corbett so I had no access to his resources.

This was in the rocky portion of the Zone 2, so we had a vantage point overlooking the waterbody below. This was late in the morning safari.

I have been increasingly frustrated with half cut images, Somehow the position of the Gypsy or the Tiger is such that making a complete image with the 300f4 is a rare event. Mind you this is only from the perspective of Ranthambhore, in other parks there is a high possibility of the 300f4 being under range. Keeping the above in mind, have invested in a 70-200 f4 L IS, hope to use it in future for images with a larger environment, especially in Ranthambhore.

Cheers
Dipankar