Oryx at sunset

Most photographers don't get excited about taking pictures of various species of antelopes, but what makes this picture compelling -- at least to me -- is the environment. This is an oryx, and I captured it in the Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia. The sand dunes here are the largest in the world, and they make great backdrops for oryx. I've never seen any other large animals here. The problem, of course, was that I used a 500mm focal length to photograph the oryx. This meant the beautiful background would have been soft -- too soft for my taste. So, to overcome the limitations of optics, I had to take two shots. First, the animal and then the background. At home I put the photos together in Photoshop. All I'm doing is simulating what I see with my eyes since we never see with shallow depth of field (notwithstanding failing eye sight). My settings were 1/500, f/7.1, and 800 ISO.