Mating Lions _ "Here's lookin' at ya"

[John Lowin]

Image created in the Upper Masi Mara, another one of our drizzly overcast days. The lioness already had her lip torn at this point. Then it got pretty loud. This image has a considerable crop. All critiques and comments solicited, I'm here to learn. Hope you like it. Thanks - John

f/5.6@1:125 ISO 400 @110mm
Canon EOS 1D MkII
Canon EF 28-200 f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Kenesis Safari Sack (Bean Bag)

[Sabyasachi Patra]

John,
Great sighting. I like the passion in their faces.

I however don't understand why you used 110 mm and then cropped heavily. The effect is noticeable. I would have liked more sharpness in the image. A shutter speed higher than 1/125 would have been good.
The sharpening during the post processing is evident. I would like to see more of the environment. I understand in Africa, it is not always possible to control the shooting angle, however a lower angle would have been great as well.

Thanks for sharing. Look forward to more.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Ken Watkins]

An all to common photo but this is a lot better than most for having a good facial expression.
It seems that is has too much contrast and could do with a little more saturation. I am sure the experts on this forum can tell you how to achieve this in PS.
Can I ask do the colours of your post match those of your TIFF or PSD,
Also the head of the lioness looks less sharp than everything probably caused by movement, normally I would recommend a higher ISO but 800 is about as high as you can safely go with your body.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

It seems that is has too much contrast and could do with a little more saturation. I am sure the experts on this forum can tell you how to achieve this in PS.
Can I ask do the colours of your post match those of your TIFF or PSD,


Thanks Ken for pointing out. I missed mentioning it.

Please check the colour temperature. If you are increasing the white balance (the temp.) to artificially warm it up, you get such yellowish colours. Too often good images are ruined by aggressively warming up. I too was doing it during it when I had just shifted over to digital. There are also some areas in the mane with clipped blacks. You need to revisit your post processing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Arthur Morris]

Jeez, and to think that I like this image a lot. Great moment and great expression on here face. My only wish is for more room to our right if you have it (which I suspect that you do).

[Robert Amoruso]

Desaturating the yellows and reds, green too will help with the color issues. I also did an reverse s-curve and a shadows/highlights adjustment all using PSCS3. Go to http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20434 for details on how to do the reverse s-curve and shadows/highlights.

When using shadows/highlights I added contrast to mid-tones with the mid-tones contrast slider.

All in all it will be better to go back to the original and fix this in either conversion or in the image editor.

Expression is priceless. Good job capturing this.

[John Lowin]

Robert and Art, Thank you so much, for the constructive comments. Robert, that is a definite improvement, thanks. I will try the rework tomorrow. Greatly appreciated. - John

[Steve Canuel]

Colors in Robert's repost looks good. Nice timing on capturing this although the lions may disagree. Seems like this might work as a vertical as well with the arched back and downward gaze of the male/upward gaze of the female.