Drinking Leopard

[Rachel Hollander]

Taken at Djuma in the Sabi Sand, South Africa. This is Tingana, one of the leopards regularly seen on the Wild Earth safari broadcasts. We followed him in thick brush for a bit after our tracker found him while on foot. We then realized he was heading to the waterhole for a drink and went there to wait. Our wait paid off.

Canon 7D2
300 II
1/1250
f5.6
ISO 800
Monopod from safari vehicle, slight crop for comp, levels, curves, color adjustments, sharpened in PSCC.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nice indeed Rachel I may have been tempted to reduce the highlights beneath the left eye a little.
Love the claws peeping out of the paw and the water looks nice too did you dehaze it a little?

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Jon. No dehaze. I think dehaze has its place but it is not part of my normal workflow. Unfortunately, the leopard began to drink almost immediately so no great opportunities for a stronger reflection without the disturbance. Left eye as viewed or the leopard's left eye?

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, I might have pulled back a bit to reduce the steep shooting angle. The highlight are quite pronounced, light must have been harsh, and the overall look appears a bit crunchy/coarse more so on the LHS. I would also have liked more DoF, perhaps f/9 as it tails off very quickly and you were close, be nice to have had the paws in as you can see the claws. I think Jon raised a good point about DH and shouldn't be dismissed as it can have a place and in this instance help.

TFS
Steve

PS I don't think you need to add each time in your intro that it is shot from a safari vehicle as it's a given. :w3

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks Jon. No dehaze. I think dehaze has its place but it is not part of my normal workflow. Unfortunately, the leopard began to drink almost immediately so no great opportunities for a stronger reflection without the disturbance. Left eye as viewed or the leopard's left eye?

Thanks again,
Rachel
The leopard's left eye (medical training always refer to patient in lateral references!!)

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Steve. As I said in Jon's thread, some of what you are commenting on seems to be coming from when I use unsharp mask to sharpen after resizing and from the conversion to sRGB. I realized that recently after you commented about blacks being heavy on another of my images. I knew they were fine on the tiff so narrowed down where the problem was. I had already pp and resized this image and didn't check for the problem before posting it. Here's a rp in which I backed off on the sharpening.

Btw not every image is from a safari vehicle and I also include the type of support used or hh.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, the RP must be very subtle as I'm not seeing too much change, if at all from the OP.


what you are commenting on seems to be coming from when I use unsharp mask to sharpen after resizing and from the conversion to sRGB.

USM is fine, the only issue is if you ramp up sharpening, but that would be the same for any sharpening applied. What is actually happening after resizing as I've just tried the same path on an image using USM and there is no issue that I can see when using USM, plus how is affecting the Blacks????? Sorry am I missing something, just trying to understand the issue or what it was?

[Jonathan Ashton]

Interesting conundrum, I would venture to say the key to the issue is in the conversion. If the tiff is showing a histogram that has blacks very close to the far left the chances are that at conversion some may well be clipped in the jpeg.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Rachel -- This is a very nice looking specimen of the Leopard and i liked the drinking pose with that tongue a real bonus (nice details on the tongue) . You have handled the light nicely and i also liked the colours.The framing works for me as presented. Yes the details are a bit coarse and i had that issue with me when i used to resize the image by going to image size and changing the dimensions. But since using the file --> automate --> fit image option that problem was resolved. I am sure you must be knowing the same or might be actually using this technique but thought just to state the obvious.

Nice image. TFS !

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks guys. It appears that the USM and also the conversion to sRGB are each spreading the histogram ever so slightly so where there are no choked blacks or hot hls before these steps, they each introduce them. Haseeb - I just tried both methods of resizing and that doesn't appear to make any difference.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[John Mack]

Very nice. Like everything about this one. Pattern on the tongue looks quite neat.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Rachel, a cool image with the drinking pose and that coarse tongue adding to it nicely. I like the visible nails and the ripples in the water.

[Marc Mol]

Just a wonderful moment, well composed Rachel, minor nits aside, I particularly like the visible claws and curled tongue.

TFS

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Rachel,

A little jealous of this... After all those years spent in the bush I still have to find - and photograph - a leopard drinking...

Indeed quite harsh light but still a great capture my friend. Composition works for me and I like those ripples in the water as well as pink tongue, which BTW has the look of a fresh and almost ripe strawberry:S3: Colours look good and some nice detail in the shadows/darker areas.

As you know, my workflow is very basic and unfortunately I have no special tricks up my sleeve. I did attempt a modest RP with intention to recover some of those HL, not sure I did a good job though - you be the judge of it:w3

Have a beautiful evening, and many thanks for sharing:S3:

Warmest regards,

[Rachel Hollander]

Thank you all. Light wasn't harsh but the reflected light from the water makes it a little brighter. As I said above, the hls are not blown on the tiff so I'm fine with it. IMHO neither rp brings out any signifcant detail in the white areas under the eyes.

Thanks again,
Rachel