Nervous cat!

[Bhargava Srivari]

It felt like ecstacy to sight a tiger after a long 3months. After my two visits to bandipur and one to kabini in a month or so failed to yield sightings, tadoba did not disappoint. It was zero-light conditions, overcast skies,but at least, there was a sighting Look at the exif and you'll know the light I was dealing with! And with the mediocre shooting techniques I possess, even a record shot at 1/25sec is personally acceptable

As for the story behind the sighting, we were the first ones to enter through the mohurli gate at precisely 5:55 am. Five minutes later, when I was shooting a buzzard, a horde of vehicles came from behind and drove straight to teliya dam. Our driver thogh, decided that we should try the yenbodi area first. So, leaving alone all the otehr behicles, we drove to yenbodi only to find this tigress (she also has cubs, our guide told) walk into the open from behind the bamboo seen in the image and was looking at us with nervousness writeen all over her face- probably a result of her young cubs closeby who haven't yet seen humans! With the same nervousness, she walked towards us with great majesty, and again hid gerself behind a bamboo, this time only hardly 6-7m from our gypsy. Every now and then, she would peep from behind the bush, but at ISO 6400, the shutter speed was a frighteningly low 1/12sec, and getting even record shots was out of question for me. Barely a couple of min later, she boldly walked across the track and disappeared into the undergrowth.

f5.6, 1/25sec, ISO 3200, EV 0, 400mm,eval metering, subject distance: 82m
canon 60D, canon 100-400 L IS USM

[Mrudul Godbole]

You got it quite well at such low shutter speed. The habitat looks nice. It is good that you could observe the behavior. Thanks for sharing.

[Neil Mehta]

Liked the feel of the habitat. Sharper picture would have looked nice. TFS

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Good that you could sight God's most magnificent creation. Photography is a bonus. The light levels appear to be pretty low. Is this a crop? Could you see the cubs? Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Bhargava Srivari]

Sabyasachi,

This is almost 30% crop, and didn't get to see the cubs.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Nice shot under low light Bhargava, I like the composition and the habitat. Considering the light and weather conditions this is come out quite well.
tfs

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice to know that ur Tadoba trip has paid off.

TFS
roopak

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I think a 500 f4 would have been good here. That would have given one extra stop. Despite the advances in low light capabilities of cameras, f4 and f2.8 still rules.