The Queen of Duba Plains

[Loi Nguyen]

Taken just before sunset when the sun just peaked down below the cloud and threw off glorious red rays.

5D3
500f4 II
1/500
f5.6
ISO-1600
Handheld
Cropped 3 sides fro comp except bottom.

Thank you for your comments.

Loi

[Colin Driscoll]

Lovely introspective pose Loi and the light is just right. Excellent detail and such a noble face that draws me into her world. I think I would have carefully removed that upright bit of grass though, and maybe the flies.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi loi, one your best from the trip IMHO.

Love the light, looks good, perhaps and just my taste, drop the Red in Saturation to -10 an add a fraction more USM to the face???


TFS
Steve

[Marc Mol]

The red saturation looks fine here Loi, giving a true representation of what you saw, love the soft overall colour but would benefit with a small amount of USM, the upright grass stalk
is a tad distracting but it's up to your own ethics whether you remove that or not.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Loi - beautiful light and excellent IQ. As to the color, I would reduce the magenta in the whites about 5 points in selective color. It still gives you the great color from the light but brings back the chin and whiskers slightly from the cast. I would also burn the grasses behind the head. The upright grass doesn't bother me, it was there but as said above it is up to your own ethics.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Loi,
very lovely colors , would not change anything in terms of color.
Overall great IQ and good tonality reflecting the contrast at that time of the day, think.Great detail and sharp where it counts . Image looks way better than the nice lion male , from the technical POV.

Well done, Loi.
TFS Andreas

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Everyone, thank you for your comments. Glad that you like it. I tried both Steve's and Rachel's suggestions, at the end, decided to do the below

1. took out the distracting branch. It's really distracting.

2. Darkened the BG a little to make the lioness stand out.

3. Reduced the Red in Saturation by -4 on the lioness, but not the eyes. The chnages are very small.

4. Cropped less. It was a bit tight.

5. Sharpened in 2 rounds, 120/03/0 and 60/0.3/0

Hope you will like it better.

Thanks again.

Loi

[Colin Driscoll]

Much improved without that bit of grass. A beautiful animal that looks like she would harm anything!

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Loi, super sharp image in beautiful light. Great detail especially around the nose and mouth. I also like the edited version better. The eyes stand out beautifully and captures your attention. Well captured!

[Morkel Erasmus]

Super soft light and mood here. Repost is better colour-wise...
If you are going to remove the blade of grass, why not blend in the yellow-coloured OOF bush behind her head for a uniform BG?