Lion King

[Basil Dardagan]

I took this image just North of Nossob in the Kgalagadi. I'm a sucker for big male lions or Big Daddy Lions as my 3 year old calls them.
Image is almost full frame. Have tried to burn some of the brighter grass just in front of his chin

Canon 1d4
500f4
F5
1/640
Iso 400

[keith mitchell]

Great to see this magnificent Lion head coming out of the vegetation ,good to see the minor imperfections and scars giving the image lots of interest. Don't see anything that I would like to change ,great piece of work.

Keith.

[steve torna]

Hi Basil, I personally love close up images of animals; especially portraits such as this that portray the details of an individuals. Battle scars,eyes, whiskers and teeth just illustrate the character and natural beauty of the subject. Love the way he peering through and framed by the vegetation. I want to see Africa so bad and I love lions; I appreciate their power dignity and fearless nature and I am fully aware of how violent, difficult and short-lived the life of these felids can be. TFS

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Basil,

This is one awesome male lion you have here:)

I am happy with the framing and I like the natural vignette, helps this handsome face stand out so well. A lovely lion in his prime, he is a little scarred - like any young lion should be - and displaying a lovely pair of mean healthy teeth. I particularly like that bit of pink on his nose. The little flowers add to this image, the innocent white of those petals in contrast with the "dark side" of the mighty lion, The King. A thought provoking frame and I understand why you chose to share this with us tonight.

I do have two humble suggestions in terms of PP work, hope you do not mind: try go back on the sharpening a little, and remove a slight magenta cast from the lips/gums.

Love the gaze from the lion, the head angle, this is well exposed and there's good detail. I hope you find a few minutes to look into the above issues, wonderful capture nevertheless and such a pleasure to view, thank you so much for sharing!

Kind regards,

[Jonathan Ashton]

He is impressive, and so is the image - well done. I particularly like the position of the head in the bushes.

[D. Robert Franz]

Really like the OOF vegetation framing the lion. Great image!

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Basil - This works very well. I too like the way the vegetation is framing the lion and that we can see those big teeth!

TFS,
Rachel

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Basil, lovely detail on the face of the big guy, and only one scar visible. I agree, the finer parts of his coat are on the edge of crispy.

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Basil
Another fine Kalahari Boy!
What time of day was this taken, he is panting, must be already hot. (light well handled..)
Does look a bit over sharpened..
Good angle!

PS how about posting some of the boys @ Kij Kij from way back? I am sure the people on the forum would love to see them.

[Basil Dardagan]

Thank you very much everybody. I appreciate you looking and commenting. Its strange because on my monitor at work this image is def over sharpened however at home (where I am now and where I posted from) it does not seem to be over sharpened. How do you set these things ? Guys please crit my images as much as you can - I am really enjoying the honest crit as opposed to just the old well done !

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Basil,

Sorry to get back to you so late. Both Andre and I like your image, very much. And some of your older KTP work too, which we hope you will share on BPN Wildlife with us all:)

Please send me or Andre a PM, will give you our email addresses and then have a chat over the week-end, if that's ok.

Have a wonderful Friday evening:w3

Warmest regards,

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hey Basil.
I concur with all the critique given so far, as well as the compliments.
I think the sharpening in this case is an apparent look, an illusion of sorts - where the bushes compete with the lion in terms of fine texture and thereby giving the image an over-sharpened or crunchy look.
I would suggest doing an inverse-clarity technique on the RAW image (you can do it in Lightroom or in Photoshop Raw). Reduce global clarity by -30 to -40. Then use the adjustment brush to paint your subject alone and add back as much clarity as you reduced globally plus about 10. So if you went to -35 on global clarity, brush back to +45 local clarity on the subject (giving you a net +10 clarity on subject but softening the surrounds).

PS: I too cannot WAIT for you to post those EPIC male lion bonding images...tick tock :5 :cheers:

[haseeb badar]

Hi Basil -- This one lovely portrait and as oon as i saw this image without even going through all the comments i felt that the OOF vignetting makes this a superb frame , agree with the magenta . This is one fine portrait .
Nice tip by Morkel also .
TFS !

[Basil Dardagan]

Really battling to get this right. Not sure what you guys think. Morkel your advice is genius

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Basil
Personally I never do any sharpening on my TIFF file before saving.
Input sharpening in LR with DETAIL slider and masking.
I only apply output sharpening after resizing for web, and then selectively.