Just a random thread on photographing tigers in the wild. Rule number one - photographs are all & only about light. There are no other rules rules as such.
Don’t do this ever - try to stay low that all my fight is about. Why would I stand up 🤦🏽♂️ Stay as low as possible generally speaking. That means parking the vehicle accordingly as you can’t get lower than the floor of your vehicle
Eye contact is cool, approaching the camera is cool. Wait for one of the leg to move ahead - step out. Don’t ever rely on the cameras motor drive to ‘get it all’ as it can’t possibly do that. Timing is very important
But no eye contact can be very cool too. You need to get close. Powerful telephoto can ‘frame tighter’ but you need to get reasonably close. Otherwise the atmospheric dust messes it up
Heck if the background is interesting tigers walking away can look super cool
As far as possible frame behaviour tightly. In other words keep as much of crap out of the picture as you can and just focus on the behaviour part.
Head shots are cool looking especially on small screens and on social media. Head shots should be head shots - at the most a bit if the shoulder. One third of a tiger is not a head shot
But slightly wider shots that show the cat in its natural habitat are just wow. They may not look so cool on social media but these are the ones I would print. When shooting these keep the background in mind. Don’t cut the bloody tree 🙂
Finally if you get to see something like this - forget all the other pointers I have mentioned - the low angle, eye contact, background etc etc. Just keep them all in frame whenever possible and don’t fuck up. Like I said there are no rules 🙂
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I have been a serious still photographer for plus 20 odd years now. For the first decade I used camera equipment made by Canon. In 2008-09 I exchanged all my Canon kit with someone for Nikon equivalents. Around 6 years ago my friend @SandeshKadur got me to start shooting videos..
Shooting videos with a #Lumix - initially GH4 and then the awesome #LumixGH5 that shoots 4K on log at 10 bit on 422 - I still don’t know what it means but apparently this is the least that most broadcasters will work with. It shoots pretty decent stills though I rarely do that
Still photography for me is #Nikon and now the awesome camera that the #iPhone has. Nikon still does not have 10 bit internal video recording. They just got it on the ‘what looks’ awesome Z9 - I need to sell some land. But the humble Lumix is bloody mind blowing
Ndutu conservation area in Tanzania is in the region where Homo sapiens first made their appearance on this play. Large wild short grass plains with some trees in between. Our guide Silas parked us facing this. It made for a nice picture…..
…..But Silas our friend and guide was not watching the vista. He found the first tree intriguing and we started driving towards it. Silas is good, really good
He drove around the tree in a huge conservation area with little tracks, an off road Mecca then. And then we realised how good Silas is.
Dhonk or Anogeissus pendula in the most important tree of Ranthambhore. A very slow growing, hard wood and highly drought resistant species. It’s small leaves start drying in early winters and are shed by the onset of summers. The leaves are great food for ungulates here.
Sambar and even Spotted deer can reach the lower branches, even if they have to stand on rear legs. Or they eat the leave that are shed on the ground. Spotted deer also follow langurs who drop a lot of leaves.
Once the Dhonk shed their leave totally by mid or end March the forest starts looking like this
There is a lake called Rajbagh in Ranthambhore national park. This. In my opinion one of the prettier parts of Ranthambhore. Adjoining the other side of the shore of this lake, behind the palace in the background is a large open flat area where you park your jeep.
It’s called very creatively ‘the platform’ - and this is the best way f all the spots in Ranthambhore for photography. The vistas are stunning in all the directions and there is a lot happening. You have a clear uninstructed view in all directions. If you look west in winters:
Towards the east there is a big patch of Vetiver or Khus grass called ‘Badi ghas’ again very creatively named. Can you see the cat?
For the panorama I have ‘stitched’ together multiple pictures shot on portrait or vertical orientation in all the pictures on this thread.
A group of tigers is called an ambush. It’s a beautiful sight. Once in a while you find an ambush in good light & it’s jackpot time for photographers. #ThePhotoHour#IndiWild
But what comes to my mind when I hear the words ‘tiger’ and ‘ambush’ in the same sentence is this - the art of stalking prey. A 250-300 kg, +9 feet long, orange coloured ‘striped’ cat goes into stealth mode for hours, if required
Once a prey is targeted, one individual - more often males, then the orange giant cat has to get close enough to get within charging distance. This often involves clearing some open patches without been no seen nor heard by any animal. Wild Cats are brilliant at it even huge ones
There is a campaign started by #RajasthanTourism & #RajasthanForests where they want you to post a selfie taken in Rajasthan’s wilderness. I am not a selfie person but let’s show them my favourite wilderness in Rajasthan - Ranthambhore. It looks stunning before dawn