Mother Leopard/Kabini#9

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Camera Model Canon EOS 7D, 500mm
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/800
Av( Aperture Value ) 8
ISO 800
Focal length 500mm
Cropped
Bean bag support

[Bhargava Srivari]

The composition is nice...the details have come out well. A little more headturn would have been great

tfs

Bhargava

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Praveen,
This series of yours is mouth watering.

In this image, the head doesn't look to have critical focus. The reason being the focus is on the hind portion of the leopard. Since you used f8, more of the body of the leopard is covered in by depth of field. However, cropping the image shows up that the critical focus is not there in the face.

It is also important to note that, if you had focussed on the head, then the hind portion would have gone out of focus. The general rule of thumb is that out of the total depth of field possible in a particular lens+aperture+distance of subject combination, nearly 1/3rd of the area in front remains in focus and 2/3rd at the back remains in focus. So it is a bit tricky. I guess, one more stop narrow aperture ie. f11 would have been great here. However, that would not have given you the shutter speed to freeze the movement in all the images. In situations like this, when you have a long sighting, it is better to press the depth of field preview button to see if the depth of field is enough. Else, trying a narrow depth of field in a few shots will also do.

Having said that unless you observe closely the sharpness/focus issue is not going to reveal. It will become apparent in large prints.

May you continue to roam around in kabini and bandipur and share more such beauties with us.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Thanks Sabyasachi, for in depth details on dof, this helps

[Chitrita Chatterjee]

sleek beauty.... love the rosettes on the glossy skin... sharp eye contact.. TFS.