.Mythmaker

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Easter Grey Kangaroo - Macropus giganteus - captured by the Pentax K20D and DA*16-50mm in mid leap. This is either a young male roo or a female, the adult males are significantly larger and look like steroid pumped body builders. Obviously I zoom blurred the roo, the background was entirely nondescript and it motivated me to experiment a bit. I have a second version of this I might post as well. Part of their prodigious jumping skills come from a massive elastic tendon in each lower leg that stores energy as the leg bends and the tendon stretches after hitting the ground at the end of a jump, that stored energy is added to the muscle energy for the next leap - very efficient. I caught this shot because this little roo jumped into the corner of a paddock and I realized it would have to jump past me to get away so I set the camera for burst shoot and centre focus and then walked toward the roo until it needed to escape me by jumping between me and the fenceline. For a novice action photographer it came out pretty good in terms of the head being sharp and the legs having some motion blur.

Enjoy.

Mikel.