Cheetah Head shot

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

This was taken at the Mara last year in August. I had posted similar image last year but this is a different framing Since this month's theme was head shots, I thought this will be ideal. Cheetahs are amazing and I enjoyed photographing them. Lens is 500 f/4 II +1.4 X TC III.

Camera	Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Exposure	(1/800)
Aperture	f/5.6
Focal Length	700 mm
ISO Speed	400
Exposure Bias	0 EV

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Sanjeev - this is so much better than the cheetah images you posted when you first got back. It shows improvement by leaps and bounds in the pp but also the field techs are better with higher ss. I really like this. If it were mine I would tame the highlights a bit more, especially in the bg, with a luminosity mask, I would get a bit more detail out of the blacks and midtones (particularly the nose) and I would sharpen the eyes just a tad more. Finally, I would back off on the reds. Minor tweaks that will improve an already excellent image.

TFS,
Rachel

[Nancy Bell]

Very nice capture of the young cheetah! Rachel has covered many of the minor adjustments that would be helpful to this image. I am wondering about the crop. The cheetah face is in one half and the vegetation takes up nearly the other half, creating a clear visual split that has my eyes bouncing back and forth. You might want to experiment cropping some of the vegetation from the image for more balance.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sanjeev, both Rachel & Nancy have provided to good feedback to move this image forward, I would lose around an inch off the LHS. There is a lot of detail in the nose, so just opening the shadow areas up with a simple adj mask will do the trick.

Since taking this I totally agree, both vision & PP has come on well.

TFS
Steve

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice, clear shot of a beautiful cat. Good advice from the other guys.

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Sanjeev

Great image, crits dealt with above.

Just a thought - would 6,3 or 7,1 with higher ISO give a slighter greater DOF? Have found that if you have the time in the field, take numerous images with different F-stop, gives you
to work with, depending what effect/mood you want to convey.

Regards

Andre