Intensity V

[Rachel Hollander]

Taken in the Timbavati Game Reserve, South Africa in August 2012.

Canon 5D3
70-200 II @ 155mm
1/1000
f4.5
ISO 800
HH from safari vehicle, cropped from left and below to remove some of the negative space, levels, curves, selective color adjustments, sharpened in CS6.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Rachel

I like your style of not "cleaning" up parts of the image by cloning, keeping it as it was. More emphasis is placed on capturing the image than PP, just like the good ol' days of film.
Would have liked a slightly bigger DOF to have his right side more in focus, but I see you already had slow SS and didn't want to increase ISO for noise.
The face of cat very sharp, like the stare down and the space you left him/her to descend into.( I would have left teeny bit more)
Having said that, there is a little brown OOF patch on top of right paw, that I would clone out, IMHO.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, like the intense stare and the diagonal of the bow.

Techs look good, but feel you could have gone for 5.6 as you had the SS and it would only have dropped a little, however just personal choice. :bg3: I agree on not cloning, but a little softening in some of the darker spots might be an alternative option? I would just open the overall cat up a fraction with a Curves and Levels, plus the eye can take it too. Finally I do feel you can afford to loose about an inch off the LHS, still enough room, but personally feel it's a tad excessive for my tastes. :S3:

TFS
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

Another nice one in this series, Rachel. I agree with Steve, it can stand a slice off the LHS (though I like oodles of negative space, just exploring options here).
I presume you don't have a sliver more "paw/leg" on the RHS?

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andre, Steve and Morkel for the comments and suggestions. Morkel - I do actually have a sliver more leg but cropped to there to eliminate a triangle of space to the right of the trunk. I can revisit it. Steve - the leopard was actually descending the trunk so I was trying to keep the ss up though I still missed the final jump. Fortunately with the 70-200 I also had flexibility on how much zoom to use.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Jamie Douglas]

Hi Rachel, a fine image and it's a bugger when we are all prepared for something that we miss. Been there done that, just ask Steve about the Snowy Owls.

Not sure if the image needs a little something else to push the tones/colour up a touch?

Jamie

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Rachel,

again a great Leopard image. Well done. You got already all input, I have only one to throw in the pot. Why horizontal? I might would have gone In Portrait mode and left more tree trunk in the lower part. But as usual this is just me!!!! :e3 :tinysmile_shy_t:

Have a fantastic day

Ciao

Anette

PS
Sorry for being absent for a while. Busy with some important things, which need to be done.