The Kalahari King

[Morkel Erasmus]

I felt like joining Peter and Gabriela in posting a lion portrait. :bg3:
This remains the most awesome wild male lion I had ever seen...photographed this November past in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (Kalahari desert).
He was walking down the Nossob riverbed, roaring and scent-marking...at one point right next to our vehicle with open windows - what an experience!


Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
1.4x teleconverter
f11 | 1/1000 SS | ISO-640
Full Frame vertical image - so I didn't crop to cut the body. I used the telephoto to get more detail on the face and composed like this to that effect.
:tinysmile_shy_t:

[mohammad reza shahab]

excellent Composition and pose.very nice light.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Morkel - portrait was certainly the way to go here. Beautiful light and the dof works great. I might consider dropping the reds just slightly. I may be crazy but does it need just the slightest amount of ccw rotation?

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

What a great sighting in beautiful light, Morkel! I cannot find fault with this image,the subject is sharp and well exposed against that soft BG, love the dust, the red in the lion's mane -he must have had a copious meal...This makes me think of a couple of lion images I have-also full frame, vertical-which remain unprocessed up to this day because each time I want to work on them I am not sure about the crop and how much of the lion's body should I leave in the picture. You have done the right thing by not cropping too much - this lion's impressive mane is his best feature,and it is what makes this image so attractive to me.

Kind regards

Gabriela

[edwardselfe]

Stunning - just what I was saying in a previous post about getting excellent contrast without too much black. Wouldn't change a thing.
That is an astonishing mane! Never seen anything like it in Zambia.
Ed

[Steve Kaluski]

Very powerful Morkel. :cheers:

[Anette Mossbacher]

Super as usual Morkel :bg3:

[Nancy Bell]

Very powerful image with the intense yellow eye and raised foot. The composition of just the front part of the lion adds to the power. Beautiful lighting & details on the awesome mane.

[hirandesilva]

The stare into the distance with a trail of dust and the sharp perfect detail of the mane makes this a very good picture.

HIran

[Brendon Cremer]

Very nice morkel, great detail and well exposed in some nice light, especially like the hint of blood in his mane.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Terrific image Morkel, difficult to know exactly where to have the body cut in a portrait but I think this is as good as any. I really like this image, I wonder did you have any landscape mode images it's my bet they would be equally impressive.

[dankearl]

I Like this a lot Morkel.
The reddish fur looks nice to me.
I would lighten the left eye a bit, there is some color and light there, I would maximize it.

[Steve Canuel]

This is a good one Morkel. The look, raised paw, and colors in the mane make it a winner.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thank you all so much :5

[Shreyas Mantri]

Beautiful everything here, Morkel! What an impressive specimen!