Brothers in arms
Two cheetah males in full focus, just before they start hunting together. In Kalahari desert.
Two cheetah males in full focus, just before they start hunting together. In Kalahari desert.
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Aug, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in Kalahari Desert, South Africa. I discovered two cheetah males, probably brothers, resting on a small sanddune. As I stopped close and switched off the engine, they were not impressed at all, were more or less interested in what I was doing.Time
I always start at sunrise when working in Africa. The photo was taken in July, which is winter in the southern hemisphere. Winters can be very cold in the night and quite often you see drops of dew in the fur of animals.Lighting
The sun had just come up, the light was very soft and warm of color. I took position with the car in a way that there was frontlight on the animals. No shadows in their portraits and a nice light in the eyes. Whitebalance was on 5800 K, I used average measuring, ISO 200, F4, 1/400 and 200 mm lense.Equipment
I used a Canon EOS-1D Mark III, Canon 70-200 mm IS 2.8, and a beanbagInspiration
The two cheetah males were not bothered by my presence. At some moment one of them start staring in the distance, his companion did the same and I couldn't resist in follow their behaviour. Far away they spotted Springbok passing. As if I wasn't there anymore, they seem to make a plan. I love the way they stared in the distance, totally in focus. Shortly after this moment they went on hunting and after a while I could not follow them anymore, so I will never know if they were succesfull or not.Editing
I converted the photo from RAW to JPEG, did some noise reduction, changed the mode from standard to portrait, added a bit contrast and light, sharpening up till 3. That was all.In my camera bag
When I go out for wildlife- and/or bird photography I have two bodies in my bag. The Canon EOS-1D Mark III with the 70-200 mm lense and a Canon 6d attached to a Sigma 150-600 mm Sport. Other than that: some extra batteries, enough memory cards, cleaning material, a macro objectiv and a wide-angle lense.Feedback
Early rise is the first step. In wildlife and nature photography the first and last light of the day is often the best. Not be in an hurry, often I see photographers racing to I-don't-know what, forgetting that the best things might not be visible when you are in a hurry. Apart from that animals don't like speeding cars.
