Eastern Grey Kangaroo

[Simon Bennett]

Female Eastern Grey Kangaroo having a scratch on a chilly winter morning near Canberra. I've tried a square crop here as a quite like the breath steam at left. The flash didn't fire on this particular frame so I have applied quite a bit of shadows/highlights.

Canon 40D, EF500 f/4 + 1.4 tc, tripod, Evaluative, Av, f/5.6, 1/125, ISO 400.

[peter delaney]

I like it... lovely pose... rim lighting.. mist added bonus... would have liked the other ear facing front on...

peter

[David Fletcher]

Extraordinary shot Simon. Great rim lighting and pose. Love the breath showing. Very well done!

[DanWalters]

Really like the rim lighting and the breath! Very interesting pose as well.

[Arthur Morris]

The animal's expression, the breath, and the scratching pose are too, too good. I like the BKGR and even the somewhat unusual crop. All in all: great.

[Robert Amoruso]

Simon,

Well done for all the reasons mentioned.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Simon,
Well done. The pose is really interesting. The rim lighting adds a lot to the image. The breath tells us about the season in a subtle manner. I like it a lot. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[David Thomasson]

Very nice ... breath, direct stare, rim light. I was curious to see if any detail could be pulled out and was surprised to find practically no noise in the shadow details.

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/1258/roonh.jpg

[Simon Bennett]

Thank you all for your comments, and David for the re-post.

David, I had applied Neat Image NR to the image. I'd be interested to know which tool you used. Thanks Simon.

[Harshad Barve]

excellent pose and details , loved the lighting here
TFS

[David Thomasson]

Thank you all for your comments, and David for the re-post.

David, I had applied Neat Image NR to the image. I'd be interested to know which tool you used. Thanks Simon.

I used several curves adjustment layers to brighten the subject (with a mask, of course). To darken the background I used a levels adjustment
layer in soft light mode, plus a hue/sat layer to tone down saturation (because soft light typically increases saturation).

[Jasper Doest]

'Simon, it seems like you exposed for the highlights...which I wouldn't do in this situation. It doesn't matter if the rimlight shows no detail....

The pose, the steam and rimlighting is beautiful...well done. But you might want to take it back into PS.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Simply superb! All has been said! Congratulations!

[Ken Watkins]

I think this is very effective, but that the effects of S/H are a little too strong.

Lokks to me like he is directing traffic.