For Your Eyes Only

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Shot this at Kabini, it is late evening low light shot, this guy had an unsuccessful hunt and later came out of the bushes to only see us waiting. He is a bold fella and hardly cares for jeeps around & goes about his business as usual. He attracts everyone by his eyes, I just love them.

Camera - Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, 500mm

Av 4
Tv 1/250
ISO 1600
Focal length 500mm
10% Cropped
Jeep's roof top rod support
Date and Time : 26th Jan'12 @ 5:54pm

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Lovely image of your favourite guy . The face and the grass in front seem to be on the brighter side. Not sure if a lower ISO would have helped. Amazing eyes this fellow has.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Lovely eye contact. Seems he was quite close. Some more space at the bottom would be good. Why the 10% crop? I think some more space all around would be fine. Thanks for sharing.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Nice image,as usual from Praveen Bhai.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Thank you all for the comments...

Murugan/Mrudul - I have not increased the brightness it is default set in LR, nor the image is over exposed. Yet the grass is quite bright that's one reason I cropped the bottom since the grass was bright. ISO was kept high to gain shutter speed as this guy was trying to hunt within the bushes and you never he may just come out with a deer in his jaws.

Like once it happened to me at Bandipur that we could see the leopard in the bush, I increased the ISO, expecting some action, but never dreamt that this guy would pounce on a Blacked Naped Hare and later hold him in his jaws and come out sprinting. I have shared that image in the past, it was a lifer for me to capture such an action.

Mrudul you are right the leopard was close enough for my 500mm lens, I couldn't fit him in frame hence cropped part of his body.
My intention of sharing this image was his Eyes, atleast I am quite attracted

[V S Sankar]

Great shot and majestic looks.I wonder who is the "007"?
The animal or the photographer?!

Regards

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Thanks Shankar, of-course 007 is the Leopard

[Suraj Sreedhar]

lovely image,the spots look beautiful.
TFS

[Shanmuga Raja]

oh., nice shot

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I like the stare. Slightly more space at the left would have been great. Since you were getting a tight frame due to the 500mm, moving the lens to the left would have been great. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi