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Theme: Mountain Lion in Winter - Triple D Game Farm
Full Disclosure, this was taken in February at the Triple D Game Farm in Kalispell MT. This is a great place to photograph animals that many of us will not have an opportunity to do completely "in the wild". The animals are by no means tame, and the waivers you sign make it clear that if you become animal food it is YOUR responsibility. While the animals are "encouraged", mostly through food treats, to hit certain marks they are by no means trained in a performance sense so much of what you see is completely natural behaviors. The photography is done in very natural settings, we are actually in the enclosures with the animals and handlers, so caution is a must.
If this does not meet the "Animalscape" theme due to the animal being too much of the image, feel free to drop the Theme and let me know.
With that being said, here is Mountain Lion in the Snow:

Tech info:
Nikon D810, ISO 280, 400mm, f5.6, 1/1250. The biggest thing in PP was lifting the shadows in the BG a touch and leveling out the color balance. In looking at the image now, I should probably have removed that bit of rock lower right.
Oh, the distance on this shot was probably about 40 feet or so, across a small pond.
Thanks for taking a look.
Last edited by Bill Dewey; 04-24-2015 at 09:29 AM.
Reason: Misspelling in title
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Lifetime Member
Hi Bill - Looks like a big, healthy mountain lion. Nice light and pose. By the way, you can disclose it's captive just by putting "(C)" in the title. If it were mine I would reduce the overall saturation and then reduce the blues and cyans even further. While some blue and cyan in the shadows is certainly natural, I find it drawing my attention away from the lion. I would also back off on the sharpening a little, particularly on the snow and front legs which look a little crunchy to me.
TFS,
Rachel
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Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator
Hello Bill,
Awesome capture of this mountain lion and lovely pose, the light is beautiful and brings out such wonderful detail in the fur.
I agree with Rachel on reducing saturation and yes I too would clone out the little rock if this was mine.
A very special image of this rarely seen animal, I would love to see more if you have.
Kind regards,
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Macro and Flora Moderator
What an eye catching image I really like it. I really like the lighting.
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Thank you all so very much. I will take a look tonight at dropping a bit of the sat and cyan, I actually dropped a fair bit of cyan out during the first go round, as those shadows really were blue, and casting a lot of that into the snow. Great suggestions.
Rachel, a bit of that "crunchy" might come from this being the image that I sent off for print, I will take a look at that as well, thanks for pointing it out. One thing I wanted to do, which can of course be managed selectively, is to keep detail in the snow.
Gabriela, I do have more, the Mountain Lion images start HERE from our February trip. You can scroll backwards to see some of the other animals, I am sure I will post more over time 
Jonathan, this was our best afternoon for light, the rest of the trip was pretty much filtered sun, at one point we were even being snowed upon. If the sun was going to come, though, this was the time to have it for sure.
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Post a Thank You. - 1 Thanks
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Nice shot. I would love to get a Mountain Lion.
Doug
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Originally Posted by
Rachel Hollander
Hi Bill - Looks like a big, healthy mountain lion. Nice light and pose. By the way, you can disclose it's captive just by putting "(C)" in the title. If it were mine I would reduce the overall saturation and then reduce the blues and cyans even further. While some blue and cyan in the shadows is certainly natural, I find it drawing my attention away from the lion. I would also back off on the sharpening a little, particularly on the snow and front legs which look a little crunchy to me.
TFS,
Rachel
Finally got around to looking at the image again with your comments in mind. Good catch on the "extra" blue. Turned out that I could reduce the saturation on the Cyans all the way, and could not see any difference. The Blues were the key. What turns out to be quite nice, I think, is that with that simple adjustment I can almost turn it into a B&W with just the Mountain Lion colored. Never thought of trying it that way before, so rather a nice side-effect learning experience that I obviously had not thought of myself. And of course, that silly rock will go.
I'll post the re-do tonight.
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Originally Posted by
Doug Lambert
Nice shot. I would love to get a Mountain Lion.
Doug
Thanks, Doug. I am hoping one day to get one completely in "the wild" as well, hopefully not when it is wanting to eat me!
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Wildlife Moderator
Hi Bill, nice looking cat, like the framing and look back pose.
I think if you were to reduce the Temperature as per my comment to Hiran, you may start to reduce some of the issues mentioned above, plus juggling with the HSL sliders, then more detail starts to show. Personally I wouldn't go too far with the Blue, yes it does need to be addressed, but you also need to have the right balance and convey that cold winter scene, albeit bathed in nice light. Depending on your ethics I would 'prune' those odd branches on the LHS. It does look a little noisy in the shadows, was the image lightened or is this a large crop, as I'm surprised at ISO280, perhaps the metering was fooled a little by the white of the snow, always look at the Histogram and meter off the snow near the subject.
TFS
Steve
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Lifetime Member
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Thanks again for your comments. What I found pleasing for me was to drop the blue sat a bit, as Steve noted I did want to keep a bit of blue as that is natural. Same with the Mountain Lion, dropped the Red sat a touch, but I do want the color to be true to what I saw, and in that light it was quite vibrant. Fun part was cleaning up the bits and pieces.
Andre, that you so much for your rendition, to my eye it just takes too much out the colors as they were. Of course since you were not there, you would not know what we say.
Rachel, Steve and Gabriela, thanks again for the thoughts and recommendations.
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Wildlife Moderator