[sach.sri]

Originally Posted by fazalaliadil

Sachin,

Your 7D is doing really great !
What is the lens in use?
Are the bird photo's cropped eg. the tree pie, peacock and babbler?
Regards,

Thanks Fazalbhai. I am currently using the kit lens - 18-135mm and yes the pictures are cropped, dont have this kind of reach yet

Originally Posted by nilanjanray

Sigh. I wish I get a leopard in front of my camera when I am ready for it (e.g. not driving) or when there is light to shoot.

Great luck and captures, Sach!


Re aperture priority vs. shutter priority mode: when light is low i,e, early morning or evenings, I use shutter priority mode to be sure of catching moving creatures. When light is decent, I shift to aperture priority mode (e.g. then I also might want to take landscape shots - to the extent possible with a zoom lens). For example in MP, in the mornings, I was starting with 1/30 or 1/40 sec and high ISO to have some chance of getting a decent shot (non blurred) of a creature. As light became better, I kept on lowering ISO and increasing shutter speed till it didn't matter.

Thanks Nilanjan. It was indeed our lucky day that we got such a nice sighting of the leopard.

On shutter/aperture - I prefer to use aperture wide open as our lenses are not very fast and so i want the camera to determine my shutter speed, but if i see shutter speed going below say - 1/25 i inc ISO. But my problem with high ISO is the grains, i feel that the picture get too much noise. How do you guys handle that? Is there some setting or something which can be used to reduce the noise at higher ISO?


Now to some more pictures -

Red Vented Bulbul - i like this set very much. IMHO Has come out pretty nice!





What is she doing in the next 3 pictures? Grooming?

[nilanjanray]

There is in camera noise reduction and also noise reduction software. However, I don't use either - highest ISO I use in D90 while taking field photos is till 800/1200 (and occasionally 1600). Noise reduction removes some detail. But I am planning to play around with low, ordinary and high noise reduction settings and figure out the trade-off in different environments.

In shutter priority mode in low light, usually the aperture is at its largest anyways. Sometimes when specific setting are required, I play around in manual mode.

You should get a good zoom lens to do justice to your camera :-). You guys have your 100-400mm, a great lens. Wish Nikon had something similar at that price range for wildlife photography.

[sach.sri]

Originally Posted by nilanjanray

There is in camera noise reduction and also noise reduction software. However, I don't use either - highest ISO I use in D90 while taking field photos is till 800/1200 (and occasionally 1600). Noise reduction removes some detail. But I am planning to play around with low, ordinary and high noise reduction settings and figure out the trade-off in different environments.

In shutter priority mode in low light, usually the aperture is at its largest anyways. Sometimes when specific setting are required, I play around in manual mode.

You should get a good zoom lens to do justice to your camera :-). You guys have your 100-400mm, a great lens. Wish Nikon had something similar at that price range for wildlife photography.

Yes, this is the lens that i am angling for. Should have it in my hand early next month

[sach.sri]

Some more birds

White throated Kingfisher - A potrait.


Black necked stilt


Black necked stilt - on one leg.


Black Stork




Ruddy shelduck


Painted storks - - sentinels gurading resting emperor


little ringed plover


painted storks






Is my rump pretty?




Oh i am tired!

[sach.sri]

Went to Sariska again during the w/e with GD sir and a couple of his friends - had a whale of a time. While sorting out the pics - a couple of treepie potraits and a black winged stilt with breakfast

[sach.sri]

Some more

Painted stork




Egret

[joshuakeys]

Mind blowing pictures, nice narration and thanks for sharing

[sach.sri]

Picking up the thread from where i left.

In my last update - i had posted some pictures from our last outing in Sariska.

This was the second time when I had done the GD special run - starting from Gurgaon at 3.00 in the morning and doing 2 Safaris and back to Gurgaon in the evening.

This time - it was decided that i will take the troupe in my Scorpio. We started with a small delay from GD sir's place - that day we had - GD sir, Ashish, Pradeep (GD sir's neighbour) and myself.

We left at around 3 am - and made good time reaching Sariska at around 5.15 ish.

Pradeep has some land holding near Silserh lake and proposed that we do a detour to his property for a quick round of tea made with fresh milk. It was pitch dark and quite cold when we turned towards his property - on the way - the only vehicle we saw had a tBHP sticker on it

Anyways - reached Pradeep's place and sat around nice fire under open skies. The property is located in a valley and sorrounded by mountains on three sides and is a very beautiful site.

Tea came - and we enjoyed it swapping war stories.

This done - we started again towards the jungle gate - reaching on time for the first Safari of the trip.

Now-a-days Sariska also has implemented "routes/zones" aka Ranthambhore with the CF being ex-DFO Ranthambhore. Hari Singh had taken Zone 1 as there were reports of tiger movement in that zone. So off we went into the jungle enjoying the cold. It was a merry company that went into the jungle.

As we went in - we saw a cheetal fawn suckling its mother - a first such sighting for me and something that was a very special event.

Now onto the pics

Cheetal fawn suckling its mother - could not manage a better angle, by the time we got in position the mother had moved away, disturbed by us.


Cheetal Fawn from behind trees


Spotted bill ducks


LAndscape - with reflections


Black winged stilt


White throated Kingfisher - just love the color


Spotted deer - with new velvety antlers. Love them.


Spotted deer family drinking water - ever the watchful, keeping half an eye on us.


Spotter deer - Kissing the reflections

[sach.sri]

As we progressed in the jungle we came across loads of cheetals and Sambhars.
I have always been fascinated by cheetals - they are such beautiful animals (perhaps the orange color with black spots is the reason for my fascination ) and full grown antlers on Cheetals just look awesome. I always try to get some interesting shots of the antlers. the shot below is one such shot.

Cheetal deer with full grown antlers - how is the composition?


Indian National bird - peacock. Such vibrant colors - very difficult to have a well exposed pic.





Cheetal fawn - in a field of Fire, somehow the cheetal is darker in color than usual!


Cheetal fawn - in a field of Fire, somehow the cheetal is darker in color than usual!


Cheetal on the road


Very cute cheetal fawn


Painted stork


Painted stork - father and juvenile out on a walk


Bar headed geese - another of my favourite

[sach.sri]

This ended out first Safari.

It was already planned that we will goto Pradeep's farm for lunch so we proceeded towards his place and took a short detour to Siliserh lake on the way. I had not been to the lake, it was quite impressive water body. RTDC has a heritage property on the lake which was ex-shikargah of the Raja of Alwar. We went up - paid the cover charges and had tea a pakore.

Nice view from the terrace - it would be simply awesome in rains i guess.

Now photos from Siliserh lake, Pardeep's farm and post lunch Safari

The team - GD Sir and PRadeep. Apologies to Ashish, dont have your individual snap.




Man-made Island with individual jetties for boats. This was supposedly the party spot for the Raja


Handsome beast


Pradeep's farm and choolah in middle - this is where lunch will be spread made out of produce from the land and prepared fresh with homemade butter and chhach.. !!Burppppppp!!


Cat - walk -- Black winged stilt


Black winged stilt - another angle


Wooded sandpiper




Moorhen

[sach.sri]

Last of the pics from this trip -

Black winged stilt - with a frog. She did not eat it immediately but dipped it in the pond couple of times, like she is washing it .





Egret - i simply love this capture, snow white and with good details.





One of my favourite things to shoot - spotted deer with full grown antlers

[abheekg]

Lovely pics Sachin boss. I am missing all the fun. Yearning to tour the northern parks with your gang. I'll be there soon.

Dr. A Ghosh

[sach.sri]

Originally Posted by abheekg

Lovely pics Sachin boss. I am missing all the fun. Yearning to tour the northern parks with your gang. I'll be there soon.

Dr. A Ghosh

Thanks Doc. You are most welcome - it will be a pleasure.

[sach.sri]

Guys - pls note that the bird id'd above as Wooded Sandpiper - is actually - Black Tailed Godwit.

Thanks for pointing this out - Sparkled.

P.S:- I have reported it to the Mods and asked them to kindly correct the heading in the post.

[sach.sri]

It has been 3 months since i bought my new camera and 2 months since my 100-400L series lens bought for the express reason of wildlife photography.

In this period i have made 3-4 visits to the jungle and multiple visits to bird sanctuaries and have started to get the hang of using it, though some functions are still not used and i have to learn.

My greatest wish now is to shoot a tiger with this combo. My new gear is yet to come face to face with a tiger and to shoot it. There have been some close calls in my recent visits to the jungle but not close enough.

Also - since my visit to Corbett in Nov 2011 - i have not had the fortune of a tiger sighting, although have been fortunate enough to get very good leopard sightings on a couple of occassions - much to the charging of a dear friend .

Read about it here -

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ml#post2719573

Last time i went to Ranthambhore alone and my brother-in-law chided me on not asking him to come along, so it was planned that we will goto Sariska together on 17th/18th which was a weekend.

Booked a room in Tiger Den and contacted Hari Singh and booked him for 4 Safaris - 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday.

We decided that we will do a GD special - starting at 3 am in the morning on Saturday to reach Sariska in time for morning Safari and stay there till Sunday and then return, but later we decided to do only one safari on Sunday as my brother-in-law wanted to return back during the day.

While talking to GD sir - informed him of the plan - and he said that he will confirm his plans if he wants to come on Sunday.

So - friday night my sister, brother-in-law and their son reached our place and by 11 pm we were all packed and ready to goto bed. Put an alarm of 2.30 am and went to sleep.

2.30 am - got up and got ready and we were out by 3.15 am. The idea is that we will not get any traffic at this time and the drive will be a breeze - but this was not to be - reaching the toll gate we saw huge line of trucks snaking up to the toll booth. With heavy heart and some trepidition joined the queue. I was still hopeful that we will not encouter any traffic after the toll gate. But no - the highway was chok-o-block with trucks even at this point in time and it looked like all the truck wallahs had woken up and started at the same time, the condition of opposite lane was even worse. I was totally amazed!

Anyways, after we turned from Dharuhera on the towards the Alwar highway - there was no traffic and nice roads and we made quick time. Reached Alwar around 5.30 am and this is place where i always miss a turn, this happened again and we missed a turn going straight instead of taking left - but after going sometime, something was not right and fortunately we found a shop open that told us that the way straight is closed and we should take a left from the crossing. Took a u-turn and then a left from the crossing and were on the right way again.

Reached Sariska around 6.15 am - had called Hari Singh ealier and he confirmed that he will be in tiger den by 6.30.

Reached tiger den - and - this is where you can feel the difference of a govt run establishment - on asking if they can give us a room now to checkin and freshen up - got a response that the checkin time is 11 am and they cannot give a room now. I requested - that if they have a room pls open it so that we can keep our bags and freshen up, but no - the guy was like - agar vigilence aa gayi to problem ho jayegi, aise kaise de de room! I was aghast, but no use arguing so let it be.

Anyways, Harisingh came together with Rajinder and not so good news - tiger sightings have reduced and with some work in jungle ongoing, there is a lot of disturbance and the tigers are usually on higher ground and not in the tourist zone.
We started the Safari - it was zone 1 - as there were some news about probability of ST6 coming down towards dhanka chowki. So off we went - it was chilly in the morning enough for us to wear our jackets.


Mostly all the waterholes and anikets in the jungle are getting dry - but there is still water in Dhanka waterhole. The plan was to go towards Dhanka chowki via Dhanka waterhole and aniket.

When we reached Dhanka aniket, we saw one of my favourite birds (kingfisher) together with crested serpet eagle and a black drongo











from here we went towards the chowki - and came across a ranger on the way - he informed us about leopard movement in the area and advised us to go slow and we might come across one. But - there was no reported movement of the big gun - aka - tiger.

So - we went from there towards Kalighati via brahamnath aniket, the place where i had most amazing leopard sighting last december - with two leopards playing around!

On the way a short distance from the chowki - we heard very loud cheetal calls, as if some predator is about to eat it - it was so loud and agitated that our hopes of sighting a leopard shot up. We stopped and waited but then the calls died down and later on looked like the leopard had moved up the hill.

Anyways - off we went towards brahmnath aniket - nothing there, no water and no animals. We did see a herd of cheetals coming towards the aniket.

Reaching Kalighati, Harisingh went in to get some news while we amused ourselved clicking some pictures of jungle bablers and teepies. Saw a couple of jungle bablers together grooming. see below...

The one of the right must be a female - forcefully cleaning the male









No encouraging news - so we decided to return back via karna-ka-vaas. Karna-ka-vaas is a huge waterbody after the monsoon season - but it had reduced to a pitiful small pit by now and all the migratory birds had flown back, only some resident variety remained.

BIF - this is one of things that i cannot do successfully with my lens till now! and have to learn. Below is the only usable BIF that i could capture.