Male Leopard

[Dumay de Boulle]

This is an older image as well...Taken in Oct 2013. This male Leopard had a kill in the tree (The tree you see to the left of the image) A Hyena was lurking around and made him uncomfortable...After hissing at the Hyena a few times he looked up at the kill and then ascended the tree...the visual then deteriorated dramatically. I like the way the tree frames the Leopard and the look on his face while exposing the canine's.

Canon 1D MKIII
Sigma 120-300 f2.8 OS
AV f5.6
TV 1/1250
ISO 400
Spot metering

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Dumay - There's a real 3D feel to the image and dynamic pose that are great. Techs and pp look spot on. Maybe just a bit tight at the bottom. If it were mine I would reduce the sharpening on the tree trunk slightly. Nice one overall!

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice sharpness, colours and pose here Dumay. Do you have more on the left, more tree trunk? And did you use a flash? :e3

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Dumay, again excellent IQ, love the open jaw and ears back!

Agrre that if you have it a tad more below and moving the crop a wee bit to the left would help. The image does have that feel of a flash being used, especially with that highlight on the eye, so helpful if you could confirm :S3: Cracking detail and the blacks again have that nice shinny, rubbery look especially round the jaw and eyes which I think adds to the overall image, a nice subtlety. Agree, the tree does seem to add a nice arching to the comp.

TFS
Steve

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Awesome image Dumay! I like the composition and echo the comments above. Very well done.

[Marc Mol]

Love the lookup and open mouth pose here Dumay, like Morkel wondering if you've used fill/flash?

TFS

[Dumay de Boulle]

Hi guys...thanks for the comments. Morkel, Marc, Steve I just checked the techs and it says I didn't use flash. I rarely if ever use the flash....Interesting that you both feel I might have used one....but nope this is as it was shot just upped the exposure slightly.
Morekl...I do have more of the tree above but no more on the left...I will try with more space on top and post.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Here is the repost...Touch more space at the bottom and more space on the top. It frames the leopard more.

[BenBotha]

What a photo, leopards are just beautiful animals. The techs are spot on. I agree with Morkel, I also thought that you used a flash. My only minor problem is the twig above the head, ?? clone it out. IMO, the RP better.

Ben

[Andreas Liedmann]

Dumay you got stunning IQ with that old cam, nice job.
Like the look up of the cat and the framing by the tree. Good color/tonal range and very nice clarity so good job in processing . After watching this for several times , i think what kind of "disturbs " me is the abrupt fall off of light /color in the BKG . It looks not like out of cam , am i right ? But this is just a minor thing .

Nice one , TFS Andreas

[Dumay de Boulle]

Thanks Adreas and Ben for your comments, Ben i only noticed that branch after you mentioned it...well spotted....
Andreas, you are wrong it is the same way in the RAW file. Behind the leopard was the shadow of the tree and also I think because I used spot metering rather than evaluative. The RAW is definitely 1/2 a stop darker all over which I lightened in PP.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Andreas...Here is the RAW straight from camera converted to JPEG. You can see the BG is very dark, in the processed 1st and 2nd post I cropped, upped exposure by about half a stop, increased whites in selective colour, dropped WB, added saturation, contrast and sharpened for web presentation.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Dumay for additional info , was just a thought from my side , no need for uploading the image as a proof , i will go with your words .
Andreas

[Gregor Bergquist]

I absolutely love this one. So beautiful. And the leopards colors contrast so good to that dark brown colors of the tree and background.

[Edward Arthur]

With everything so well balanced it looks like a studio shot. Awesome capture of an incredible cat. Congrats!