Hypnotic Eyes

[Rachel Hollander]

This is the Vomba young male leopard and he gave us lots of great viewing time and poses. On this particular morning we spent the drive watching him unsuccessfully stalk a herd of impala before losing interest and resting in the shade of a bush. I wanted to capture the beauty and intensity of his eyes. Hopefully, this image accomplishes that. Taken in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve, South Africa.

Canon 5D3
300 II plus 2x III
1/250
f5.6
ISO 800
Beanbag from safari vehicle, ff, levels, curves, selective color adjustments, sharpened in CCPS.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Marc Mol]

Nice colour and details here Rachel, might have preferred to stop down to f/6.3 or f/8 with the 2.0tc on so had the nose to ears covered, I'm seeing a slight magenta cast in the blacks from the neck back, and would have wished to have him lift his head slightly to clear the grass stalks also, but we know that they don't always play ball.:bg3:
TFS

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Rachel just gorgeous eyes with a nice glossy sheen to them , just right.Great detail and sharpness , but the colors are a tad too cool for my liking depending on the time of the day.
The cast that Marc is referring too , is actually blue not that much cyan plus you have slight blue/cyan creeping through in the light fur under the chin , could be solved and i think the image looks different in terms of color.
Overall i feel the eyes get lost in this one , i feel it is too tight (cut off chin , almost cut off ear) or not tight enough for those eyes.But understand the dilemma with all the distracting foliage to go tighter. Just my 2 cents

TFS Andreas

[Marc Mol]

The cast that Marc is referring too , is actually blue not that much cyan plus you have slight blue/cyan creeping through in the light fur under the chin ,

Definitely a magenta cast Andreas from the neck back (not chin):w3, no hint of Blue/Cyan that I can see on all of my cal monitors, please adjust those spectacles :t3 LOL Just my 2c :w3

......now back to WC Brazil

[Andreas Liedmann]

Dear Marc i do not judge the colors by my eyes , i do use eye dropper in PS ….. and the numbers do not lie :t3. Even on a non calibrated screen possible to get the colors right.
Sorry i meant blue not that magenta in the blacks on the neck , sorry for the typo.

Just take the eyedropper and set preference to LAB color space (of the eyedropper ) and hover over the blacks , you will 0 in the A and - 10 in the B channel that means blueish cast with tendency to magenta/purple :w3 , if it would be magenta the A channel value would be +10 and the B channel roughly -3/4.
The light parts under the chin are showing -5 in the A channel and -10 in the B channel that means roughly you have a slight cyan cast .

Even the best spectacles would not help if you cannot read or better said do not know what these numbers means , just my 2 cents , LOL. :t3.

A quick tip learn the LAB color space ………. even cheaper than the 2 cents

Kind regards and hope you do not mind , pulling your leg , Marc

Andreas

[Nancy Bell]

The eyes indeed capture my attention. I never expected that green color in them! I do not mind any of the vegetation but would have liked a bit more room on the bottom. My leopard images are still just dreams.

[Marc Mol]

A quick tip learn the LAB color space ………. even cheaper than the 2 cents



I know how to use LAB colour space Andreas :t3
If one can't see a colour cast with a good cal monitor, then that should be the end of it in my book.:2eyes2:
Far too much emphasis is placed on it here (BPN) for my liking, . Let's leave it there shall we.:w3

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Rachel, very nice sighting, details, and sharpness. For an effective eye image, I think you need the big gun (600mm + TC). Here I feel the image is too tight for portrait, but too loose for the eyes. Loi

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, Vomba is for sure a gorgeous leopard, but also a very frustrating one too, as it must have been three hours plus we spent with him and he still did not take down a kill, even when it was presented to him only feet away.

I don't mind the framing, but would have liked a bit more of the chin in frame. Personally with a title like yours I might have thought about going tighter? However saying that I do feel the DoF is fine, as you really want just the eyes to be pin sharp with truck loads of detail. Certainly you position was the best having the choice of either side. I might just clone out those two little light areas one halfway up on the RH trim edge, likewise the two highlights above the right ear as viewed. I haven even started to look yet at any of mine, so these postings are a good insight.

Just have a think back about my lesson I gave Mike as I walked him through some of the early stages of PP, it may help?

TFS
Steve

[Don Railton]

Hi Rachel, The eyes have it, no doubt about it, I am hypnotised... I think its beautiful and I think its all you wanted from the image, well done! Dont know about colour, and chins etc dont bother me because the eyes work so well I feel.

Don

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions. This was more of a grab shot as I fired off several when we stopped close to him as we were leaving the sighting and he had given up on the hunt despite the fact that, as Steve said, at least a couple of impala had been within feet of him earlier. I have some with the full chin in but then the ears are clipped :w3. My feeling is that because the chin was behind the foliage anyway, it is less of an issue. Marc, I checked the magentas again and on my calibrated monitor they are negligible. Andreas - I had already substantially reduced both the cyans and blues in the op but can look at reducing them more.

Thanks again everyone,
Rachel

[Carl Walker]

Hi Rachel. Glad to hear to hear that you all had a great time out here and look forward to more to come from everyone.

I think you have achieved what you wanted to here in your OP and apart from suggestions above, I like it as is. Everyone wants the perfect clean image but it doesn't always happen and you do what you can with what you have. If it were that easy it might not present us with the many challenging aspects that make us strive to learn and improve on our field techniques as well as our PP work. I think this is so typical of leopard in their habitat and this is why I enjoy what you have tried to achieve here.:S3:

As you already know I am not that great at picking up casts so I will leave it there.
Hope you don't mind but I thought I would try to focus in the eyes a little more by darkening the some of the bg and fg as well as working on the eye area in topaz detail and Viveza 2 to bring out a bit more detail. I cropped some off the LHS as well as a silver off the RHS.WDYT. Its a learning curve for me as well so I hope I have not weakened the image. In hind sight, looking at them both now I should probably left cropping off the LHS.
As always it looks a lot better working from RAW
Let me know?
C

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Carl - I never mind people having a go at one of my images. Thanks for your efforts but personally I think you have overdone/overcooked it to the point of it looking crunchy. Sorry. I'm not familiar with Topaz Detail. I am familiar with Nik Detail Extractor and if I use it, I do so vary sparingly (usually only at 3 or 4%) because it is a powerful tool. Interestingly your use of Viveza seems to have brought back more of the cyan cast in the chin. I do like your crop and perhaps even going more square is an alternative.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Douglas Bolt]

Rachel,

I like the OP very much, but I did discover a bit of a color cast when I brought the OP into PS and clicked on Curves-Auto. I had not noticed the color cast in the OP, likely because it was subtle and because the dark gray background in CC tends to make a color cast more obvious, at least for me. The screen capture RP below represents one click on Curves-Auto and a slight increase in the Reds, see insert. The slight orange tone of the leopard's fur seems closer to my impression of a Leopard, but then I didn't see this magnificent creature - wish I had.

I do like Curves-Auto. It tends to be the first thing I do to an image in PS. Doesn't always work to an advantage, but easy enough to delete or reduce the opacity of the layer.

doug

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Rachel,

You have had such amazing sightings and opportunities on this trip and getting so close to this beautiful leopard tops it all - those lovely eyes seem to pick the colours from the environment. Love the eye contact and somehow I wish you had a tad more space below, but that does not take away from the intimate quality of this photograph portraying the elusive, shy nature of the species - a great pleasure to view, thank you for sharing,

Warmest regards,

[Satish Ranadive]

Magnificent close up with beautiful eyes.

Regards,
Satish.