NEW Shot Settings – Wild Dog in Africa

Here at The Natural Photographer, due to popular demand, we’re starting a new category of article.  Shot Settings will be a new way for you to browse through photos quickly and see the detailed “metadata”, aka shot settings, for each.

In addition to a select photo, I’ll put a quick few sentences on any special circumstances that allowed me to get such a shot, as well as brief notes on what post processing techniques (i.e., photoshop and similar) I used to get the photo portfolio-ready.

a wild dog poses in green grass in botswana's okavango delta

Shot Settings: f/4.0, 1/2000, ISO 640.

Post Processing: increased brightness; increased contrast; color temp 5500k

This is an African Wild Dog, just before hunting.  The green season of Botswana is a fantastic time for wildlife photography, as the grasses have a wonderful verdant green color and wispy texture.

While this dog was standing still at this moment, I opted for a fast shutter (1/2000th of a second is definitely fast) just in case there was any movement.  Thus, I also increased my ISO slightly for the entire morning of wildlife photography, up to ISO 640.

I also went with a wide aperture, as I a) wanted to blur out the non-essentials and b) wanted to optimize shutter speed for these fast-moving animals.  f/4.0 is indeed a wide aperture and I think this turned out nicely.

Stay tuned for another Shot Settings post soon.  And if you have any special requests, please do leave a comment below!

Best,

Court Whelan Signature
Court Whelan