by Joe James
It's been a while since I've posted anything new but I just got back from two wonderful weeks in Kruger NP, South Africa. I know Kruger sometimes gets a bad rap but I think it's one of the best values going and we increased our enjoyment by doing two of their 3-night Wilderness Trails. The quality of guiding we experienced on these trails was superb and the price point just unbelieveable. We had two of the best weeks for sightings and photography that I've ever had on a trip so now it's time to share. 
We've heard many complaints about crowding in Kruger but this was our second trip and by avoiding the South African school holidays we've never really had a problem; at least compared to places like Yellowstone and Yosemite.
We found these two brother Cheetah one evening about 15 km north of Lower Sabie on our way back to camp. It was quite a way to end what for us was an epic day as we had a Big 5 day that day and got to top it off watching these two on a scouting mission. We first found them in the tall grass and followed them for a bit when we noticed the large log up aheand and took a gample that they would decide to hop up for a better view. Turns out we were in luck this day. If only that one pesky acacia bush hadn't been there but nothing we could do about it. In total, we had three cars (including us) at this sighting which lasted a good 15-20 minutes until we had to leave in order to make it to camp before dark.
Canon EOS 7D MK2, Tamron 150-600 @ 309 mm, F6.7, 1/1500 sec, ISO 1000
Thanks for looking, any C&C welcome!
Comments
7 commentsJames,
Always great to see Cheetah, and even better two!
It might be my monitor but this looks to be a tad too yellow?
Sounds like a marvelous day, Joe. Anticipating the next move was rewarded with a fine shot. You complain about the Acacia tree in the background, but to me it helps frame the cat on the right and saves the image from having a horizontal line running through the Cheetahs head. (a pet peive of mine). I think a little added vibrance would enhance the sweet light here. Congratulations on a great day!
Hi Ken & Neil - thanks for the comments. With respect to the yellow, I've been wrestling with that for this entire sequence as it really was very yellow. It was that last half hour of daylight when there was just enough dust in the air to make everything that wonderful golden yellow color that was accentuated by all the long, golden grass of early winter. Just a few minutes after they hopped off the log everything started taking that lovely orange-red color just as the sun was setting. Here's a version with the color temperature toned down a bit to make it look less yellow. I've also tweaked the contrast and vibrance just a bit.
Hope you like it!
Joe: nicely captured with the two cheetahs on a well positioned diagonal tree trunk. I like how the one is making eye contact with you while the other is scanning. I think the image could be improved with a white balance correction, but it is fine otherwise. Richard
Hi Joe,
I'm with Richard in liking the two different directions that cheetahs are looking. I'm not sure which of the two versions I like better, but I am leaning towards the original, simply because (on my monitor) the more yellow cast makes the cheetahs "pop out" a little better. For me the yellowish cast seems absolutely within the realm of what could be encountered in nature, especially during the "golden hour(s)".
Glad to hear you had a great trip - looking forward to seeing more from it.
Cheers...
Brad
Great to get these 2 perched up together like this Joe, I prefer the original with the golden light.
Thanks everyone for the comments. It is funny how sometimes what you actually see looks "less real" than what you think you should see. The setting sun really was casting a yellow glow on everything that evening which to me was the perfect way to end a perfect day in South Africa.