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[Rudi van den Heever]

It has been a long time, but patience is a virtue... I have been attempting to see and photograph the elusive leopards of the Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa since 2009 - It reached a point where people would joke about how "unlucky" I was :2eyes2:, but after many days and many hours of patience it finally came together about a week ago... :bg3:

THe OOF gras in front of the face is a bit annoying, but there was no way to move the vehicle with the huge traffic jam she organized...:e3

Canon EOS 5D Mark III and 500mm F4 L lens at 1/1000s, f4 and ISO 400... Spot Metering in aperture priority

Processed in Lightroom 5 and Silver Efex Pro, with mid tone adjustments in CS6

[Katie Rupp]

Rudi,

Congrats on getting your leopard. That intense, straight-on eye contact through the branches is very effective, especially with the B&W presentation. Love it; takes me right me to those times when you've spotted the subject and are patiently waiting to get a good look.

Best,
Katie

[Morkel Erasmus]

Congrats mate, know how special this sighting was for you! :5
Love the eye-level POV here, lovely tonality in your conversion too. Wish that twig wasn't in front of her face, but not a deal-breaker as here it's all about mood and a moment of connecting with a predator.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

This is very nice as presented. Congrats on the sighting & getting the shot! Wish the branch in front was not there, but that's OK. I like the B&W conversion.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

If you thought that you're unlucky with leopards then all I can say is: I'm megatons worse! :w3 I'm still dreaming of a sighting like this. Spending 4 days in the KNP at end of Nov - who knows...

Lovely photo in spite of having a pesky twig or two in the way. It actually suits the scene in a strange way. I'm usually not too fond of B&W other than in rogh-skin animals like ele's and rhinos but this one works for me. Nice, well done! :5

[Dumay de Boulle]

I like your B&W stuff....I can't remember when last I saw a colour image from you Anyway, I like the secretive feel of this image. Nothing like it when they look straight down your lens. I saw my fair share of Leopards in my time in Pilanesburg. Where did you see this one?(Looks like a female)

[Rudi van den Heever]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Dumay, we saw an impala carcass (or what was left of it) in a tree about 200m north of Pilanesberg Centre on Kgabo Drive earlier the morning... already a huge traffic jam being so close to the centre... Saw a couple of vehicles later the afternoon and investigated... found her right next to the road... huge traffic jam later, but luckily we were stuck right next to her... We saw another leopard earlier the day on Mankwe Way at the "Rooikoppies", but no real photo opportunity... :w3

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Rudi - great look at camera and the conversion works for me. Too bad about the oof grass and the branch but that's so often a problem with nature shots.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rudi, the image for me is very 'Contrasty', with strong, solid blacks in part with whites too, leaving the face lacking some 'tonality/depth' to ext rat detail, for me it looks a little 'pushed', but it really depends on the look and feel and what you wish to convey. The brighter grass (vertical) is distracting, but nothing you could do in moving based on your description, but I might and depending on your ethics, remove the dark twig horizontal to the eyes, but again personal choice. The low POV is nice and I like the position in frame, but I would have gone for more DoF, as you had both ISO & camera, why Spot?

TFS
Steve

[Rudi van den Heever]

Hi Steve! Thanks for the input! I knew that I would use this image for a B&W conversion and found that spot metering gave me a much better exposure on the feline's face than evaluative metering...