Legadima The Leopard Makes The Cover by Grant Atkinson
The
image of Legadima the leopard is one from a sequence I took a little while
ago. This frame was recently selected
for the front cover of travel company Bench Internationals 2012 Africa brochure
– www.benchinternational.com.au
One
thing about viewing and watching wildlife is that you really just never know what
is going to happen out there and the day that I took this shot was one of those
occasions.
The
well-known female leopard had two young cubs with her at the time, and was busy
feeding on an impala kill that she had dragged under a bush. I parked my vehicle alongside a tree that I
had seen the cubs playing in, the day before.
When we unexpectedly heard lions roar very nearby the adult female
leopard climbed the very tree I was parked alongside to look out for the
danger. For reasons unknown she then
turned right around and decided to come down a very small branch toward us, and
in the process gave us a bit of a warning snarl before relaxing and slipping
quietly by the side of the vehicle without giving us another look.
For
those with a technical interest in the photographic background to the shot, I
was using a Canon 7D and 70-200f2.8 IS I combination at the time. The leopard had been in deep shade only
moments before, and I had the lens wide open at f2.8 to make sure I had enough
shutter speed. When she turned and
walked into the light without warning, I had no time to change the aperture,
and just blazed off six or seven frames, trying to capture her warning pose,
and her approach. This resulted in my
shot settings being less than ideal, at 1/3200 sec and only an aperture of
f/2.8, at iso 400. With more time on my
hands I might have chosen to shoot with more depth of field than what f/2.8
gave me, perhaps at f/4.0 or even f/5.6, but in the end, it did not matter, as
the quality of the resulting image was good enough for what was needed. The folk at Bench International chose to crop the cover shot out of the larger image shown alongside this text, for more impact.
In
processing this image I had to carefully lighten some shadows on the darker side
of the leopards face and apply selective sharpening.
It
just goes to show that content is usually more important than shot settings
when it comes to wildlife photography, as long as your settings are more or
less acceptable.
For
more on wildlife, and photography, visit my website here www.grantatkinson.com
Great image!
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about the settings, sometimes you don't have time to make the necessary adjustments without missing the opportunity of capturing the action....sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't, but worth the gamble! This is one certainly that paid off!
Thanks Susie, I got lucky on this occasion. I try to always remind myself to err on the side of shooting too fast a shutter speed rather than too slow, usually with wildlife things can happen very suddenly...
ReplyDeleteWell done Grant and thanks for the extra technical information. I'm a newbie and I'm still paving my road.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations Grant.
ReplyDeleteA superb capture.
God Bless.