Sausage chillin"

[Marc Mol]

The leopardess called "Furaha" chillin' out in the bough of a huge Sausage tree as the afternoon lingered on. I love the colours here which were indicative of the afternoon light with the threat of a storm closing in.
Also suits a monchrome conversion, but as we have quite a few preceding this I went for colour here. Just managed to sneek the tail in, a little tight there. Elected to not go wider on RHS due to some green veg creeping in.

Ruaha NP- Tanzania.

Nikon 80-400 AF-S 1/640s f/6.3 ISO400@ 290mm. Small crop on the left side, ACR & PS CC only.

C & C welcome.

Mods: could you please title change tree species to Sausage , my apologies

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Marc you are using 5x4 ?
I think it works , not much you can do about the tail , sadly.
I like the relaxed pose and the curves and lines of this big Baobab.The colors are really nice and not too saturated for my eyes.
The subject is looking a tad dark and the blacks are looking a wee bit clocked up, at least to me .I would lighten the subject and lighten more the tree behind the subject to get more tonal separation between them .
Have you used clarity slider on this one ? The sharpness is not as fine as you normally post ?
Just my observations .

TFS Andreas

[Marc Mol]

Thanks Andreas,
yes went for a 4-5 ratio, not my favourite for sure, but a had some sky BG coming in on the LHS, the dangling tail, plus wanted a less central placement also.
I generally use around 20-25% +clarity adj in ACR depending on subject and did use it here, perhaps it could use a just a touch more USM.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Marc - nice relaxed pose of the leopard and I like the tree (I changed the title for you) but do think that the knot below the head distracts slightly. I agree with Andreas that something seems different in your pp, the sharpness and detail isn't up to your normal standards and the tree looks a little gritty. I also agree that the blacks look choked. I do think it is worth reprocessing.

TFS,
Rachel

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

I think you don't have much choice in terms of your cropping Marc - these animals with long tails only let us bring them closer that far! Massive tree! Being used to the IQ usually coming from some of 'you guys' it would have been nice to have the face a little sharper but I think you've tested the limits of the 80-400mm (nice to see a great pic without a prime lens for a change). Definitely a keeper!

[Marc Mol]

Thanks Tobie

I think you don't have much choice in terms of your cropping Marc - these animals with long tails only let us bring them closer that far! Massive tree! Being used to the IQ usually coming from some of 'you guys' it would have been nice to have the face a little sharper but I think you've tested the limits of the 80-400mm (nice to see a great pic without a prime lens for a change). Definitely a keeper!

If you have a look here without web size constraints, you'll see there is no problem with image quality on the leopard:

http://500px.com/photo/68659373/leop...m=user_library

The new 80-400 AF-S holds up very well in the image dept, and not a lens issue, seems more of a tech issue here.

So not quite sure what's happened here in downsizing/conversion to web, I'll check that out. Agree a leopards long tail is meant to challenge us in composition.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Marc, i just had a look at 500 px .
I must say there are the same issues with this image , at least for my eyes.
I compared this one to others of yours on 500 Px , they are better in terms of IQ , without knowing the techs behind them.
Just a very subjective observation from my side .

Cheers Andreas

[Marc Mol]

Thanks Andreas, a case of driver error, I'll investigate further.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

If you have a look here without web size constraints, you'll see there is no problem with image quality on the leopard:

http://500px.com/photo/68659373/leop...m=user_library

The web page displays the image a bit smaller so it would appear a little sharper, Marc. No need to have sleepless nights over it - if I take a pic this nice I'll feel very chuffed with myself!

[Marc Mol]

True Tobie

The 500px is actually 3750x3000 (+9MB from memory?) as opposed to here 1125x900 (just under 400kb) , a big difference, and the point I'm trying to make, and to my eyes
at least the difference can be clearly seen.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Lovely setting here Marc. I agree it looks very gritty here and much better on your 500px link. I would still lift shadows and midtones a touch as there's some choking going on at the bottom end of the tonal spectrum . Tightness at the tail is not ideal but at least you got it in :)

[Marc Mol]

Thanks Morkel

Tightness at the tail is not ideal but at least you got it in :)

True, and I couldn't use a prime/500 excuse either.

[Morkel Erasmus]

shame on you for not zooming out more!

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Marc,

Glad you got the tail in, I would have been naughty and cloned in some tree! Just kidding, I do not clone much these days, and especially when I decide to post on BPN...
You have an amazing number of leopard shots and such great opportunities - I enjoy your images tremendously. I guess the techs have all been covered already, I agree with the above comments regarding the need to lift the shadows, I guess a luminance layer on the subject itself would also help.

Hope to see more from you, meanwhile I am wishing you a great week-end and hopefully more sightings...

Kind regards,