Mesmerising Looks

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I saw this jackal in the afternoon in Bandhavgarh National Park. I positioned myself and waited for it to come closer. I loved the looks.

Shot with a Canon EOS 40D, EF 400mm f2.8 L IS USM lens. ISO 200, f3.5, 1/800 sec, bean bag

This is a full frame image.

[Ed Cordes]

The look with the open mouth and upraised paw are super. The smooth BG makes it pop. I would consider eliminating the very OOF band across the bottom.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

He's got killer looks. The raised left fore-leg adds a lot.
Like it as posted.Cropping off the bottom OOF band would bring the feet just on the border of the frame leaving no space below at all. That would be too tight... IMHO.

[Robert Amoruso]

One of your best posts so far Sabyasachi (of the ones I have seen). The animal looks great, BG looks great and contrasts well with him, plus you got him in the clear.

The bottom out of focus area happens abruptly - did you blur this area in Photoshop? If so, I think removing the blur would strengthen the image. I agree with Kaushik that cropping it out would bring the feet to close to the edge.

I would suggest cropping some off the right of the image to move the jackal out of the center and right.

Well done image.

[D. Robert Franz]

Love the pose the foot up is one of my favorites... If the jackel was a bit further right in the frame it would be stunning.. A fine capture for sure!!!!

[Ramon M. Casares]

Love the pose, love the light, love the BG, love the.. everything! Nice looking shot! Congratulations!

[Steve Canuel]

Nice BG, pose is great, and nice colors. Agree with others about moving a bit out of center and the bluron the bottom.
Steve

[Sabyasachi Patra]

One of your best posts so far Sabyasachi (of the ones I have seen). The animal looks great, BG looks great and contrasts well with him, plus you got him in the clear.

The bottom out of focus area happens abruptly - did you blur this area in Photoshop? If so, I think removing the blur would strengthen the image. I agree with Kaushik that cropping it out would bring the feet to close to the edge.

I would suggest cropping some off the right of the image to move the jackal out of the center and right.

Well done image.

Hi Robert,

I didn't blur anything. I don't have photoshop. I use Lightroom. The blur happened naturally. The blur portion is the raised ground. Infact, the Jackal was coming up an incline and the f3.5 aperture has rendered it completely blurred. I have done minimal postprocessing in lightroom Beta- just used the strong contrast curve. Didn't do any sharpening during post processing, as the shot is sharp. I just clicked on the output sharpening option while saving the file. Since this is a full frame shot, I will try to play around with cropping.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi