Another favorite photo of mine from Africa is this running cheetah. The challenge here was which shutter speed to use. If I used a fast shutter, the cheetah would be sharp -- which is what I wanted -- but the background would be sharp, also. I felt a sharp landscape behind the cat would be distracting. Even if it were a bit soft due to the use of a telephoto, but it had defined elements like trees and bushes, too much of the attention would be diverted from the cheetah. If I used a slow shutter speed, the subject would be blurred. Sure, artfully blurred images can work, but to me, the most successful nature pictures are those that show the beauty of the natural world with tack sharp detail. After all, it's the detail, texture, and color that we appreciate about wildlife and nature. So, I decided to do a composite. I used a fast shutter for the cheetah (1/1600th of a second), and then when the action was over, I switched to 1/30th and made a horizontal pan of the landscape, blurring it into an abstraction. I then put the two images together in Photoshop. The background now is entirely complementary with nothing distracting at all. I used a 300mm f/2.8 Canon telephoto for both shots, and the settings were f/7.1 and 320 ISO for the cat.
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