Happy belated lion day

[Richard Flack]

143697

I love the inquisitive nature of these beautiful cats. All thoughts welcome...

Location: Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa
Date taken: 15 June 2014
Canon 7D, 400 f2.8
Photo details:
ISO 1250
Shutter speed 1/640
F stop 6.3
Exposure bias -0.3
Sharpened for web

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Nice pose, good details and exposure despite the brighter back-light/BG. A square crop might look nicer as it will give bit more room in front of the lioness....
TFS.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Richard - thanks for posting in honor of WLD. Is this full frame? I would like a bit more space to the right if you have it but not a deal breaker. It feels like the shadows have been recovered a bit too far with not enough tonal variation between the part of the face in the sun and the part in shadow. There is no color profile embedded in the image so there is a color shift if working with a color managed browser. Once I took the image into PS and assigned a working profile there were some greens/blues/cyans coming through in some places so I reduced those, gave the midtones a slight boost and also burned the bright bg. Finally I added a couple of points of black to the neutrals in selective color. I then converted the image to sRGB and saved for web. WDYT?

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice post for WLD, Richard. Love that typical Kgalagadi look to her and the image.
Rachel's repost has taken it in the right direction tonally - I can't help but wonder if you took one in "landscape" orientation too? Would have a bit more room to "look into" that way?

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Beautiful expression & good IQ! Morkel & Rachel have said the rest! :5

[Richard Flack]

Thanks so much to everyone for taking the time to comment and provide advice!
Rachel, your repost is awesome. Really appreciate it! And need to apply my mind more to post processing. The image is not full frame and I do have a bit more space to play with on the right. I will repost when I have a chance... am way behind on my photographs.
Morkel, thanks, I don't have a landscape image but do have some room to work with. (Think I need to go on what of your post processing courses :)). Thanks again!

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Richard, personally I feel it's somewhere between the two, as the blacks are going a little 'contrasty' and loosing a little of the finer detail for me. I might be tempted to blown some colour back in at the top and lose the blue, it just seems then to keep the colours within the same palette. Just watch the chin, it's starting to get a tad crunchy and the chest has a little colour noise creeping in too. Like the inquisitive look and those eyes you can fall into.

TFS
Steve

[Richard Flack]

Thanks so much Steve. Appreciate the advice