Bobcat on the Hunt

oops, uploaded the larger version with a watermark by mistake, sorry!

This bobcat was a great find Christopher. He is in a very nice crouched stance and the lifted paw lends a sense of motion. I'm not too wild about the centered pine tree in the foreground, seems to steal a bit of the stage from the real star (bobcat) but I understand this may have been a little beyond your control. Hey, at least he isn't behind the tree!!! One solution would be to take a little off the right side or add some to the left if you have it in the original. Looks like there may be a bit of a sharpening halo on the bobcat's back, or perhaps just some brighter snow there? Thanks for posting this, looking forward to more of your work.

Hi Christopher,

I'm in agreement with much of what Gary said - the crouch is great, the uplifted paw adds interest to the scene, and you documented an act that few ever see. But that pine in the middle is a pretty big distraction to overcome.

I hope you don't mind me asking this, but your camera settings seem a bit unusual to me and I'm wondering what prompted you to go with this combination? That's a super high shutter speed - I understand that it's great to be "ready for action" but 1/4000s is probably a whole lot faster than what you need to freeze almost anything (you're getting into the "freeze a speeding bullet" zone here!). Between that and stopping down so much you're committed to using an ISO quite a bit higher than the scene actually demands (I know the ISO performance of the 1Dx pretty well - and though it's quite good, the camera does better at ISO 400 than ISO 1250). Perhaps you were hand-holding the camera and wanted as fast as shutter speed as possible? Just curious...

Cheers...

Brad

Thanks for the feedback. That's why I am posting, trying to get better. I have had some sharpness issues with slower shutter speeds and, yes, hand holding this set-up after several hours I was getting pretty shaky. I wasn't exactly sure what speed would be good. figured I would rather have a sharp image at a high ISO than a blur at a slow one. The sun was also coming and going, so I had it on shutter priority and probably didn't notice the aperture when the sun popped out. I had just got the 1 DX and this was my first wildlife shoot with it and
wasn't sure about the ISO performance, so also a bit of an experiment. I think the halo around the rear is a bad burn and dodge on my part, will try to clean that up and see what I can do with the crop to make the tree a little less distracting. All good feedback, keep it coming, that's why I am here!

Here is an update with the suggested recrop. It looks like the halo around the hind quarters is a coincidence with the snowy background as best I can tell. This frame now has a significant crop over 100%. some basic burning in the background around the main subject with sharpening and noise reduction. Appreciate any feedback!

Christopher, I like the recrop better, though you could probably go slightly tighter to eliminate the dark patch in the upper left corner.

I've been there when it comes to overcompensating on the shutter speed, but thankfully 1250 is just fine for the 1DX.

Congrats on capturing this fantastic moment.

Max

This has already been well discussed. I want to emphasize this is a special opportunity you caught with a fine action pose. I fully agree with Max about a bit more top crop...and think the reworked version is much stronger than the original framing.

The new composition with the tree off to one side is an improvement. !00% crop is getting up there, good for the net and smaller prints though!

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Learning something with each frame!!

Christopher,
I am with you on the need for a fast shutter speeed when hand holding with a long lens, I usually do not like to go above 1600 on my IDX and as a standard use 800, dropping to 400 when conditions allow.
The repost works much better, great capture of a rare sighting

Thanks Ken, just to confirm, your numbers are refrencing shutter speeds and not ISO? Thanks for the guidance!