My first wildlife post. Leopard in Botswana

[gail bisson]

This is my favorite image from my trip to Botswana last year.
rebel XS
100-400mm at 210mm
iso 100
f 8.0
Aperture priority
Cropped by 15% and 1 branch cloned out of right upper hand corner. I used LR3 to sharpen and used adjustment layer to decrease brightness in upper sky and bring back some blue.
Subject distance ~60 feet
Hope you like it.
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from

[Chad Caswell]

Hi Gail, lets start out by saying "Lucky you" :bg3: Love seeing these guys hanging around, you managed to capture a very alert looking stare, did something have his attention? I feel you could warm this up a tad WB wise, exposure looks good. Also I notice the sky in the blue areas seems to have a pixelization pattern in it, this may be from sizing for web.

Nice job!
Chad

[gail bisson]

Hi Chad,
This leopard was watching a small herd of gazelles.
You are absolutely right about the white balance and the pixellation. I re-edited the picture and did not adjust sky brightness. Is this better?
Gail

[Chad Caswell]

Gail, your re-post looks much better :c3: however, if you wanted to add some blue to that re-post sky you can put both images into the same document, apply a mask over the tree and leopard and show the sky from the first shot. then run a gaussian blur to help smooth out the sky. Also, I noticed you took out the little stick under the leopard and did a re-crop and left the limb in the lower right corner. :c3:

Chad

[gail bisson]

Wow Chad! Nothing slips past you, does it?!!Thanks for all your advice...now, if you could instantly give me the the skills to do what you said about the sky!!I am a CS5 beginner and slowly reading through Artie's digital basics.
Gail

[Hilary Hann]

Gail, this is such a nice pose with the alert look, the tail curled around and the front paw dangling in a relaxed manner belied by the intent stare. The warmth of the repost is much better and I don't mind the branch being left in. Nice detail in the tree. Well done and welcome … great first post here.

[Tom Graham]

V good first post. Second try image best, put the blue sky back in. And try flipping it left-right, maybe?
Tom

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, your repost looks good. I like the attentive pose, and glad you didnt cut off the tail.:w3 The tree certainly has character, and good that you captured him in the open. BTW, when exactly will you be in Cape Town?

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gail and a warm welcome to the Wildlife Forum, great opening shot, which part of Botswana was this taken?

Regarding the image, certainly the repost is better, retaining more of the warmer/natural tones, however as you say, you then lose the sky. Combining the two would give you a better result, although to me, the sky does look a little pushed even in the original post, as it looks quite a cyan blue. If you shot this in RAW then I might be tempted to revisit the original and extract it that way, as you will have more information and control, then tweak it in PS. Adding elements in PS is not the ideal way to go and achieving more 'in camera' will make you a better photographer and result in a higher quality of image.

A classic pose of a beautiful leopard, with the front paw dangling, but the added draped tail just adds a nice touch to the overall image. If you could add the shutter speed in the details that would be great, plus if you altered the compensation too, as I might have suggested upping your ISO to give you a better SS especially when hand holding in perhaps not ideal situations. Cropping is a personal thing, but if you keep the proportions and working from the bottom LHC I might just stop the crop where the 'V' shape branch hits the trunk at the top, width would follow in pro.

Actually looking at the image I have got the info thanks 1/400 f/8 ISO200 +0.67

Look forward to seeing more from the trip and any questions just ask. :S3:

TFS
Steve

[gail bisson]

Hi Stuart,
We will be in Capetown October 23 to 25 and then we head down the Garden Route over the next week and leave for Namibia from PE on Oct. 30.We could try and hook up for a day anytime during that week
We are spending 3 nights at Grootboos on the route as well.
Steve,
This was taken at Chitabe. We saw 2 leopards in 2 days there. A real treat!!
Tom,
Do you mean actually flip the image and have him looking to viewers left? Why would I do this?
Thanks for your comments everyone. I will work at getting the sky bluer!!
Gail

[Steve Kaluski]

Thanks Gail, will be there again in five months time, so... :S3:

'Generally' an image looking in, (flipped in your case, left to right) is sort of 'preferred' in overall terms, however I personally prefer as presented, if that helps Gail.

[Vivaldo Damilano]

All been said , love the pose captured and his attentive look. Nicely done Gail TFS :cheers:

[Dumay de Boulle]

Welcome to the wildlife forum...Lovely image to open your WLF account with, I like the warmer re-post. Nicely done

[Marc Mol]

Another vote for the warmer repost Gail, well done, love the attentive pose here.
The curled trunk really frames nicely.
TFS

[Morkel Erasmus]

a little late, so my apologies here Gail...but welcome to the Wildlife Forum and an awesome "opening deposit" for your account here :5:t3

Lovely sighting and you captured the leopard very well with a good pose and an intense stare into the distance. I hope you don't mind, thought I'd do a (very) quick repost to show you the effect Chad was referring to.

Here's what I did so you can try and replicate in CS5:

1. Started with your original post with the colder tone and blue sky.
2. CTL+J duplicates the entire photo.
3. Now on the new layer, use the "magic wand" tool (sensitivity about 20) and select all the parts of the sky - be careful to also click on those parts between branches and parts of the tree on the LHS.
4. Clicked on the "add layer mask" option at the bottom of the layers palette. This selects "punches through" the unselected parts of the image, effectively showing the leopard of the bottom layer.
5. Now click on the bottom layer and either do "color balance" or apply "photo filter >> warming filter" (I chose the latter). Set to taste.
6. Add a wee bit of contrast to the bottom layer for more "pop".
7. Voila!
8. There are many ways to get this result...this is but one of them.

What do you think?

[Rachel Hollander]

Gail - I too am late to the party but a warm welcome to the wildlife forum, always nice to see another woman photog here. Really like the pose with the dangling foot. Morkel's repost takes it to a whole other level.

TFS,
Rachel

[gail bisson]

WOW Morkel!! You have made my picture amazing. I am off to do what you did. Love it! Thank you, thank you!
Gail

[Brendan Dozier]

Great pose and capture, Gail. Final repost looks fantastic.

[Harshad Barve]

Welcome to wildlife and great advise above
TFS