Open Wide

[Rachel Hollander]

Another one of my favorite leopard, Ntsongwaan a/k/a Topsy Turvy. Taken in the Timbavati Game Reserve, South Africa. This was at the same sighting of the lions on the buffalo kill that I posted a few days ago. Ntsongwaan sat near the top of the steep riverbank for a while observing the scene. This was during that time. As we left, he used the cover of the vehicles to approach the water for a drink.

Canon 5D3
300 II
1/400
f6.3
ISO 1600
HH from safari vehicle, shot vertical but slight crop for comp, levels, curves, selective color adjustments, sharpened in CCPS.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice direct view of the yawn here, Rachel. Colours and exposure look spot on.
How close was this? Was a shallower DOF an option without losing sharpness on the nose, but to also provide more bokeh in the BG?

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, perhaps a square format with just the head emphasising the capture as I don't thing having the body adds much, but just my take. Adding a small vignette will also through the head out too and perhaps add a fraction more separation?

TFS
Steve

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thats one huge yawn Rachel. Lovely sharpness and nice DOF. The colours look perfect and the PP is superb.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Love the head on view of the inside of the mouth. Also all the whiskers...You never notice how long they are until you see them at this angle. Nice sharpness and texture, especially on the tongue. I would maybe try crop off the bottom just above what looks like a rock in front of the feet. If only the eyes were open even just a little I wonder why that could have looked like, but I know there eyes are barely open at times when they yawn.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Morkel, Steve, Sanjeev and Dumay. I'll take a look at the various suggested crops. I also liked the way you could see all of the whiskers surrounding the head.

Morkel- I'm not sure how far we were from the leopard, maybe 20-30 feet. I know this used to be viewable in PS but for some reason the data isn't there in the EXIF. The leopard was fairly close to the grasses behind it and I wanted sharpness from nose to the back of the throat so I'm not sure if opening up a bit would have gotten a better bokeh and still achieved the desired sharpness. The yawn didn't last long so no experimentation time.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Rachel ,what a yawn . Nicely captured with the long whiskers very good visible , good tonal range and nice colors /details.The distance info is no longer available in Bridge and honestly you could never trust it 100 %.In the exif it is not saved either , not even inside DPP available :eek3:.
I would suggest to go for a 4 x5 crop to loose some on the bottom.

TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andreas. I looked for the distance in DPP too and couldn't find it there either. It's still a field you can select in Bridge, just not populated anymore.

Thanks again,
Rachel