Return to the kill

[Marc Mol]

A 4yr old male leopard returns to his prized baby zebra kill he made earlier in the afternoon, I left a tad of detail in the shadows here for added depth.
With this beautiful Rock Fig's natural lean, it wasn't too hard working out his angle of approach and positioned myself to enable this silhouette and early evening sky.
Having the D850's amazing DR latitude, extracting full shadow detail was a piece of cake, but kept this frame close to the RAW file, but will post another from this sequence with full shadow detail later.

Kogatende, Northern Serengeti- TZ.

Nikon D850
Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8E FL VR
f/5.6
1/2500s
ISO720@ 130mm.

1400px wide.

Bean bag, front pax seat, TK adj's, curves, levels in ACR & PS CC'20.

Cheers
Marc

[Jonathan Ashton]

Yes this works for me, a well thought out image, just a hint of detail works well. Those whiskers just add that little extra.
You said a zebra in a tree - not a large one surely - just a foal I would imagine??
Also I have been dying to ask for ages but what is a pax seat - just another term for passenger seat??

[Marc Mol]

Many thanks Jonathan



You said a zebra in a tree - not a large one surely - just a foal I would imagine??

It's in my description Jon, a baby, likely not much older than a week or two. Other images from that sequence to follow.



Also I have been dying to ask for ages but what is a pax seat - just another term for passenger seat??

Correct, a throwback to my Enforcement days. :w3

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks Marc - and yes I missed the foal bit in the description (probably a senior moment).

[John Mack]

Very nice. The tree makes this image for me. The leopard is in the perfect spot as well.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Marc, what a cool image! I like the hint of detail on the leopard, the climbing pose and clouds in in the sky are lovely. Nicely composed.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Marc -- A very nice frame with the fig tree so nicely angled. I liked the simple nature of the frame and your on field craft as well. As Jon said the whiskers coming out so clearly adds to frame as well. I really liked this one.

TFS !

[Giovanni Frescura]

I like it lot. The only little disappoint is about the leg in front too much cut in the siluette by the tree...But is is only a bit thing...Well done !

[greg cowle]

Very nice image, I like that you kept the shadow extraction to a low level. Shows off the iconic shape of the leopard very well.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Marc - This works very well as a silhouette. I really like the placement in the frame with the branch above and to the right. I think most of us in the field might have been tempted to have the tree trunk more to the rhs with the leopard going to the upper left but I think this works very well.

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Marc,
I cannot think of a better way to compose this, very nice work:cheers:Great techs too, colours look good ( love the sky) and that bit of detail also adds to the image.

Been looking at this few times over and admiring the profile of this leopard - what a beauty!

I like this as presented, many thanks for sharing!

Kind regards,