Clash of Titans!

Gallery: WildlifePosted March 20, 2011162 views8 comments

We were heading back to our resort in Samburu, Kenya, after a full day's safari, when we came upon two adult African elephants in a full-pitched battle. In fact, we heard them even before we saw them. The sound made by the tusks clashing could be heard for over a kilometre. The light was fading and I had a Canon EOS 3 film camera with Fujichrome Sensia 100 ISO film. I put the camera on full auto and shot a series of images, among which this was the best, showing the fury of the clash. Exposure details unrecorded.

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by Ashley Vincent on March 20, 2011 at 2:42 AM

What a wonderful full-on action shot Ajit :^) My family and I had a wonderful few days at Samburu back in '06, came back with plenty of Elephant images but nothing quite like this, very well done :^)

Kind regards,

Ashley

Registered on March 1, 2011, 154 Posts, 2083 Comments

Comment posted by Johan Malmros on March 20, 2011 at 6:34 AM

The blur really lifts the action and works great. I often feel images of fighting elephants have a tendency to lack intensity but this one sure doesn't.
Did you pan the left elephant?

Registered on January 6, 2011, 20 Posts, 154 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on March 20, 2011 at 11:25 AM

Hi Ajit,

I like this. Motion blurs that contain a mix of blurred and sharp(er) elements always work best for me, and this one has just that! On my monitor the image looks just a tad dark and perhaps a bit under-saturated (that might be the first time anyone ever said that about Fuji film!) but these are minor and easily corrected things (if you chose to do so). Only other really minor nit - wish there was a tiny bit more room between the tail of the elephant on the left and the edge of the frame. Overall though I quite like this image!

Cheers...

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments

Comment posted by Wayne Willison on March 20, 2011 at 2:05 PM

Major action going on here. Full auto, huh? Well the mix of blur and detail work well and its an image to hang that's for sure.

Registered on April 10, 2009, 292 Posts, 3967 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Gulash on March 20, 2011 at 9:33 PM

Super action photo. I like the sharpness in the center where they are making contact and the peripheral blurring, very effective. Beautiful scan.

Registered on January 28, 2005, 879 Posts, 12098 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Hackley on March 20, 2011 at 11:14 PM

Good title and interesting action between these giants, the motion blur works well with this, way to go.

Registered on September 17, 2009, 302 Posts, 5535 Comments

Comment posted by Jagdeep Rajput on March 21, 2011 at 12:34 AM

Beautiful frame n great job on blurs ! Agree about tweaking the exposure n saturation.
Jagdeep Rajput

Registered on April 29, 2008, 686 Posts, 2857 Comments

Comment posted by Morkel Erasmus on March 22, 2011 at 4:30 PM

the techs here are outstanding Ajit! especially with film on auto :)
sharp where it matters...a few slight adjustments as mentioned will take this over the top

Registered on March 22, 2011, 385 Posts, 2068 Comments