safari in the masai mara Cheetah Chase I

One shot from a sequence taken in the Masai Mara earlier this year.

Humbling to watch yet alone photograph.

Peter , Welcome to photonet. You start with an amazing photograph !!!! klasse, I was many times in Africa, waiting for cheetahs, I have not seen any. And you have seen her hunting ! what a beauty !! jana

ESTUPENDA FOTOGRAFIA DIGNA DE UN GRAN DOCUMENTAL

Great capture! Congrats!

wow...great shot great timing...

Wow !! Great shot. I was in Africa recently but did not see any kill. Please add more photos from your collection.

Scary But Great Capture, so natural very clear. Question is how u get too closer to get this.

Like it very much.

 

Regards

really great photo, the cheetah know he has the little guy. It could use just a tad more space on the right side to see where they are running to - but I know it must have been a hard shot to get. Otherwise, the sharpness and moment is incredible! 6/6

This is superb Peter , well done :?)

 

You have made me very jealous , seeing a wild Cheetah hunt is one of my dream things to do in life.

 

All the best,

Alan

Excellent capture. Best regards.

I think it's awfully difficult to get such a photo.

You have caught the concentration and panic in these two animals perfectly.

wow... thats one hell of an action shot! should be proud of it.

I am speechless..yes little bit of negative space on the right side will be good, but this is a great action shot - rare, very rare

...and caught with a D100, which means that your timing was even more impressive (not the quickest camera). Really nice job, one can't help but wonder what happened just seconds after this shot was taken. I find myself wanting the little guy to escape, but knowing that he didn't. Great image!

excellent!!!!!!!!!

Great shot!

Kudos

Amazing...

I cant say anything that hasnt been said before in regards to how brilliant this shot is. Congratulations!

Outstanding wild life shot !!!!

As someone who has shot a lot of birds in flight, there was something a tad odd about this picture to me. Perhaps, it was because of the body language of the cheetah. First, he is looking at the camera, which struck me as odd, as he should be looking at his prey. After all, he is supposedly not doing this for sport, but survival. Second, and just as bothersome to me, was the overly casual gait of the cheetah. If he was this close to the prey, he should be decelerating in a very violent way, that is, his tail should be out of focus, like this:

 

www.bluedolphin.org/NewBDwebsite/Lion%20scans/RunningCheetah_LG.jpg

 

Again, I have pictures of several birds changing course violently in midair; their limbs look like they are about to shear off. Unless this particular cheetah has never hunted before, he should know that the next step will take him way past the deer. I had a very strong suspicion then that this picture is a composite, a clever one, but a composite, nonetheless. But, just to be fair, since the photographer declared that this was one of a sequence of shots, I decided to go to his folder to look at the rest of the images making up this sequence.

 

The third image in the "sequence" was this one: www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3627249 . Notice the cheetah is standing almost still, and STILL the doe is right there in front of him.

 

I have been on this site a long time, and can appreciate photoshop and its possibilities. But, HONESTY should always remain a virtue.

Perfect!

For what it is worth I have actually witnessed something like this in that park many years ago at a time when I had 25 ASA (ISO) kodachrome slide film. I was ill equipped to capture a scene like this - low light and very slow film. I choose to observe and retain it in my memory.

It was a mamma cheetah and two cubs very early in the morning in relatively low light. There were 4 stages to this drama:

1. Mamma chased this animal at extremely high speed with the prey  zig and zagging  - a challenge for any photographer much less in low light.

2. After tripping the prey and then biting it in the leg but leaving it alive - she allowed it to run again and chased it some more - making sure that it did not have the same speed before the bite in the leg.

3. With the prey slowed down with a bite to the leg, she let her cubs chase it for a while - I suppose training for them.

4. she bit it in the throat to strangulate it and then they had it for breakfast.

It seems quite cruel but it's nature's way of protecting the various species that there is some killing of animals like this Thompson's Gazelle  so that the available grass land can support the number of animals that breed and roam there.