Tiger by night/Bandipur #1

[Praveen Siddannavar]

This Tiger was spotted late evening on 30th Oct'10 (Saturday) while our way back & it was pitch dark @ 6:20pm. This is a full frame image with ISO 6400 & handheld with 500mm. Extremely difficult conditions to capture this, to make things worst there was a slight drizzle first and a heavy down pour later. Overall a thrilling moment and some experience

The aperture should have ideally been 4, by mistake it got changed I guess. Sabyasachi how do we lock the settings, this problem has occurred on several on occasions.

Camera Model Canon EOS 7D, 500mm
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/15
Av( Aperture Value ) 4.5
ISO 6400
Focal length 500mm
Full frame
Handheld

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Praveen,

It happens at times. The dial at top moves and the aperture changes. At times while changing focus point (if you are not using the joy stick), one can also change the aperture. One has to be alert and check through the viewfinder (the readings are at the bottom).

Alternately, one can select the shutter priority and in low light automatically the lowest aperture gets selected. If the shutter speed is low then it would blink and one needs to raise the ISO or lower the shutter speed.

Difficult conditions to click this image. 1/15 is too low a shutter speed to get sharp images.

Moving the camera a bit lower, would have enhanced this image. A vertical would have also worked. However, at times it is all about experiencing rather than photographing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

That is a great experience to see a tiger on the road. Agree with Sabayasachi about the vertical composition to include the tiger in full. How long was the sighting? Thanks for sharing.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Mrudul the sighting was not on highway, it was within the forest area near border road. We had got information from another jeep that they had seen a tiger going in the bushes. We waited for a while anticipating that it will come out. It was past 6pm, light was fading and suddenly this tiger appeared at a distance on the track, for the first 5 mins we could see it & we keep safe distance followed, later it became pitch dark & we had to use the jeep headlights, only then I managed few shots, else it was impossible to photographs. We followed it for almost 15-20 mins and left it as it was already too late to reach the exit gate.