Thanks Bob.
LR all the way.
Bit more dodge, burn, vignette, shadow recovery in these.
The Ngorongoro Crater is the largest upbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera. The base sits at about 5000 ft, the rim tops out in the low 7200 foot range. It contains the highest density mammal population in the world and covers I believe about 80 sq miles, maybe a bit less.
Elephants and the large cats do someitmes exit, but mostly the animals here do not migrate. Wide rrange of East African wildlife including Cape Buffalo, lions, Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, wildebeests, hyenas, serval cats, hippo, many bird species, but no giraffes. Just not enough trees for lunch.
A small number of nearly extinct black rhinos are inside and the wildlife is carefully monitored by rangers in the crater and along vantage points on the crater wall/rim.
The volcano erupted over a million years ago. The mountain may have been the size of Kilimanjaro or larger.
I'd imagine to have sufficient shutter @ 400mm handheld shots (possibly from a moving vehicle or otherwise poor shooting posture). Pulled back to 135mm, f7 may not be as necessary as @ 400mm, but with the 100-400 f7 is less than one stop from WO @ 400. This to get more into the "sweet spot" of the lens (vs. WO).
Shooting an "in the moment" kind of environment, I'll sometimes defer to a "safe" approach so I can keep my mind on the moment at hand, rather than the technical refinements. One might suggest that's what auto, program or aperture/shutter priority modes are for. But given the variability of the animals tonal values vs. the grasses, etc. ... very easy for a meter to get "fooled" when you swing from one direction to another or fill the frame with darker/lighter values. If you lighting is reasonably constant, manual can be the way to go.
It can be somewhat like the journalistic shooting strategy of ... "f8 and be there" ... rather than miss the moment while you are trying to optimize the artisan. My guess is that Scott was not in control of his environment and had to be somewhat more "reactionary" than he may have liked due to time constraints being placed upon him that he couldn't control otherwise. Thus, choosing a setting that would allow him to be ready for about anything, even if not optimized for everything ... knowing "reshoot" would not be an option.
pretty much as Kent said
I was loathe to exceed ISO 800 on the 7d and, unless the exposures are spot on noise/loss of detail becomes an issue even at that relatively modest ISO.
In retrospect, probably enough shutter speed for these guys to move to f8 for greater sharpness. Pretty much sat in the vehicle looking this way and that with my 7D/100-400 ready to go, ISO 800 in AM, 400 after; aperture priority or TV most of the time. And my 5D Mk II 24-105 ready for wider or much closer shots. There I dont care what the ISO is since its fine above 1600 or more.
