Stalking Leopard Cub

[Rachel Hollander]

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted a leopard shot :bugeyed:. This one is of the 8 month old male cub as he decided to stalk his mother for entertainment. This was taken around dusk.

Canon 5D3
70-200 II @ 200mm
1/800
f5.6
1/800
ISO 800
EC +1.0
HH from a safari vehicle, levels, curves, selective color adjustments and sharpened in CS5. Full frame.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel


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[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Great shot Rachel. I like the subdued look of it and the subject is just amazing! Cheers
Sanjeev

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Sanjeev, congrats on the new lens and nice to see you posting comments as well (you should do so more often- a great way to learn).

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, really like the body posture of this one, it really does scream - 'stalking'.

Personally I do feel it's a little lost in frame and would suggest a slightly tighter crop, still keeping the subject coming in from the top left, however, lets see what others feel. Perhaps a slight vignette to bring a bit more focus to the subject. Nice techs & processing.

TFS
Steve

[Grady Weed]

Rachel,

I understand the urge to go full frame with a nice image like this one. I rather like it like this. I love the dead on stare and the low posture of the cub. I am on my laptop now so it is hard for me to judge colors, so...it does look nice as is however. I would leave it full frame. I like it when we crop in camera as it where.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Rachel,

Already changed my mind twice on this! Finally decided that, although I like the cub stalking into all that space, a half inch off the top and an inch off the right does strengthen the presence of the cub in the image.

Thanks for sharing,

Gerald

[gail bisson]

Hi Rachel,
The stalking pose and look of concentration are wonderful.
I am with Steve re:crop. I would place the cub a bit higher in LUC so would trim from the top and right ( to the a in Rachel)
I love the big paws as well.
A great shot,
Gail

[Rachel Hollander]

By popular demand here's a crop with some off the top and the rhs. I think it really strengthens the image so thanks all for the suggestion.

[Andrew Merwin]

Another neat leopard image Rachel. TFS. I agree with the above comments. I think the RP sings.

[Steve Kaluski]

Yep, gets my vote, exactly what I would have crop too! I'll let you off on the other bits :bg3: but perhaps something to think about for the future on some images.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Rachel,
the leopard itself looks a bit weird , nothing in common with an elegant moving cat :w3.So not much you can do about.
Framing in the RP looks a lot better , processing good as always.

Only thing i have are the colors, i think i would like to see more variation in the colors themselves .For my taste they look too "FLAT".

TFS Andreas

[Sid Garige]

Like the repost Rachel. Subject gets more attention compared to original crop. Very nice image.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andrew, Steve, Andreas and Sid.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Repost works well Rachel! Looks a tad 'sharper' too?
I half-agree with Andreas, I'd boost saturation on the leopard ever-so-slightly to lift it from the 'bland' surrounds? :S3: