Wildlife Portfolio

[Richard Peche]

Hi guys,

I have received a few requests to display more of my photographic work. So I decided to showcase some images that are truly South African.
The following images were taken over several years and in several nature reserves. The exact locations will not be disclosed, especially for the rhinos.

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[Richard Peche]

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[Richard Peche]

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[madagascariensis]

Breathtaking.
I especially like the birds in mid flight.

[Richard Peche]

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That's it :)

Thanks for looking!

[FrozenTundra]

well there goes any of us winning APOTM anytime soon lol. assuming he enters them...

[Richard Peche]

well there goes any of us winning APOTM anytime soon lol. assuming he enters them...

Hahaha, thank you very much for the compliment!

I have entered this month's competition but the image is of an animal that has not been shown here. In an effort to keep with the spirit of "not seen on the forum" I did not showcase any images from that series. I must say that the one I entered is one of my favourites.

[DeboraBremner]

well there goes any of us winning APOTM anytime soon lol. assuming he enters them...

Just wait til he wins....then we all have 4 months to play!! thumbs2:

[DeboraBremner]

Needless to say the pics are stunning!! Think my favs are 1, 2, 9 and 10...feels like you could touch them!!!

[talldutchie]

Is that the same lion at the watering hole twice? Or do they all look alike?

Any idea why some of your backgrounds are so noisy?

[Richard Peche]

It's the same lion. We were lucky enough that he posed for about 10 minutes whilst drinking.

Most of the images are taken in the early morning or late afternoon so the ISO is set quite high. My gear is first-gen so the sensors are not great at noise control.

Otherwise some of the images have been through psedo-hdr processing to increase the colour reproduction of the natural scene. Sadly this can increase the noise as well. It doesn't show through much when printing.

[talldutchie]

I know how it is shooting in that first or last hour of light. I've found that the dfine plugin does an excellent job to clear up my shots. After that I run the viveza plugin to give local contrast and saturation a slight bump.

Perhaps see if you can get those plugins?

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8105/8481855964_5a42575613_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/j_wijnands/8481855964/)

My D300 isn't that good on iso1600. Without dfine the background here would be very noisy

[KevinVA]

Stunning work! Thank you for sharing. Love that lion.

[Sandz]

That you can see the chin hairs on the zebra on pic 2 is pretty sharp.

[KevinVA]

And the eyelashes on 7. =]

[gronlaura]

Love the zebra eye. #16,17 & 18 didn't open for me.

[Richard Peche]

@sandz, it's pretty cool when they come that close! Maybe 4m away. The lens that I use plays an huge role in the sharpness of the images, the Sony G series lenses are very very good!

@kevinva, that photo has a story behind it. I was standing face to face with the zebra. That photo was taken as is from about half a meter away. The place where I was staying has herds of Kudu, Zebra, Giraffe and various other buck that are relatively used to humans. The area is still very wild though.

In some rare cases you can get extremely close, provided that you are careful.

I once spent a good few minutes with a male Kudu that wanted his head scratched, right between his horns!

@gronlaura, it has done that to me several times now and I have no idea why. It usually loads them if you refresh the page.

[fishmommie]

Thank you so much for sharing. The photos are perfect - I can't imagine anyone finding fault with any of them.

[Richard Peche]

Two more of the lion. He was on show that day!

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[Knightia]

That is one fat lion! Nice shots.

[Richard Peche]

A photo I have been looking for...buried in the backups!

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[KevinVA]

That is awesome. The darker background really makes it pop, too. Very cool photo. What species bird is that, anyway?

[FrozenTundra]

I would guess a secretary bird based on the file name...

[KevinVA]

That'd probably be it. Thank you, wise grasshopper.

[Richard Peche]

That is awesome. The darker background really makes it pop, too. Very cool photo. What species bird is that, anyway?

It is indeed a Secretary bird. Beautiful birds! Their height and colours can make them a very good photographic subject in the bush. I've almost captured a picture of one hunting, sadly I didn't have enough light! They hunt snakes and lizards and kill them by stamping on them with their talons.

[gronlaura]

Very cool photo!