The kopje King.

[Marc Mol]

The dominant male from the Kusini Kopje pride is on dawn patrol.
I was very pleased when I saw the opportunity that this beautiful male presented me with as it straddled "it's" kopje (rock outcrop) to survey his kingdom!
Tried as best I could to get that tail extended, but it just didn't happen for me on this morning.......musn't grumble :bg3:
With this pride being protected by 4 big males, and (most) of the kopjes themselves being relatively small in height allowing for a much lower POV, this area would have to be one of the best areas to photograph lions on kopjes IMO.:w3


Kusini plains/Serengeti- Nth Tanzania.


D4 80-400AF-S 1/4000s f/5.6 ISO1600@ 210mm. Slight crop for comp, H/H from front pax seat, levels, curves, WB adj + 4% Nik detail to get a sky that resembled what I saw, in PSCC & ACR.

C & C most welcome

Cheers
Marc

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Marc very nice silhouette of the King .Like the color and tone in the sky , but would choose a different crop though:S3:.

For cleaner corner/edge i would crop where the Kopje meets the bottom line .

TFS Andreas

[Behin Nazemroaya]

Wow, such a great silhouette of lion. I love your photo. thank you for sharing.
I agree with Andreas about the crop and I think a warmer red sky in background via PP could improve your great capture, Otherwise I love the shot.
Thank you

Behin Nazemroaya
www.prophotocom.com/galleries

[Dumay de Boulle]

I like this a lot. Gorgeous silhouette and I love the blue sky rather than the typical 'Orange Africa sky'. Very nice Marc!

[Marc Mol]

Appreciate the comments guys, many thanks.


Hi Marc very nice silhouette of the King .Like the color and tone in the sky , but would choose a different crop though:S3:.

For cleaner corner/edge i would crop where the Kopje meets the bottom line .

TFS Andreas

I had entertained your alternate crop suggestion Andreas but went with this one for a slice more of yellow tones in the sunrise.:w3

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Marc - I also like this a lot. Well seen and captured. I too like the blue tones. Andreas's crop suggestion is a good alternative. I do see a slight halo around the lion.:2eyes2:

TFS,
Rachel

[dankearl]

Perfect silhouette, the BG color could not have been better....

[Marc Mol]

Thanks Rachel & Dan.


I do see a slight halo around the lion.:2eyes2:

TFS,
Rachel

Good pickup Rachel, even if slight they are still visible, this always becomes a problem with large variations in contrast and shows up big time in silhouettes.
After tinkering with many ways of removing halo's, most have involved manual & time consuming methods via the clone stamp tool.

I've recently found a far quicker and more efficient method that involves the healing brush tool and changing the Mode from normal to darken.

...................and yes I should have used it here for my OP, but felt it wasn't required. :2eyes2::bg3:

Here is a RP using that method, the changes are subtle but it does work and do notice an improvement.

[D. Robert Franz]

Love the silhouette here. A wonderful looking lion for sure! May have cropped a bit off the left and top for comp. Great opportunity and follow through!

[Morkel Erasmus]

Glorious image mate, love it.
Can't add much more than what's been said already, RP is an improvement. Wish I could spend time with these kopje-climbing lions of the Serengeti someday!

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Amazing silhouette Marc, all has been dealt with but I must admit this is well thought out and executed frame. Nice work.

[haseeb badar]

Hello Marc ! I liked the colors as they are, cropping from the left will kill the yellow color, so this composition really works . Beautiful image !

[JF Isaksen]

Perfect in every aspect! I can really feel the power of this great animal.

[christopher galeski]

its all been said,a great image,well done.

[Gabriela Plesea]

The word "glorious" comes to mind, but I see my friend Morkel already used it:)

I love this, brings back special memories, moves my imagination, very evocative - perhaps "sublime silhouette" is appropriate?
Simple and so beautiful, Marc:5

Kind regards,