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Thread: Leopard Portrait

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Default Leopard Portrait

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    I thought I would start us off on this month's theme now that I have my computer issues sorted. This is another from our morning spent with the Kwela Kwela Female and her cub. This is the same leopard as in Steve's recent post "Leopard Face."

    Canon 5D3
    300 II plus 2x III
    1/500
    f5.6
    ISO 2500
    Monopod from safari vehicle, ff, levels, curves, converted in Nik Silver Efex, sharpened in CCPS.

    C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

    Rachel

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    Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator Gabriela Plesea's Avatar
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    Hello Rachel,

    Of all the photographers I know, you are one who can make use of a Nik effect and it is so subtle it does not show Beautiful conversion with lots of detail and I guess this is almost FF, ideally there would be a tiny bit more space at the bottom just to include the tips of those whiskers but no deal breaker for me...I really like the closeness, the intimacy of this portrait, the subject is so alive...
    I love those many shades of grey by the way, the clarity of the eye, nice soft BG... it all works for me 100%, superb work, congratulations

    Warmest regards,
    Gabriela Plesea

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Thanks Gabriela. No way to be subtle about the use of NIK here though. I used it for the conversion to b&w. I started with one of the presets and then did a couple of control points to adjust structure and contrast selectively. Yes, this is ff. Steve would probably say I should have used the 1.4x and then cropped but I like frame filling portraits too.

    Thanks again,
    Rachel

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    Very beautiful work!

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    Hi Rachel, beautiful portrait with good DOF and sharpness. I find the grayish of the BG a bit less attractive with the B&W leopard. Wish it to be brighter, but that is just personal taste. Loi

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  8. #6
    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Thanks Raymond and Loi, much appreciated.

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    Lifetime Member Ákos Lumnitzer's Avatar
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    Just a gorgeous image and looks fabulous as a B&W!

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    Hi Rachel -- A beautiful image !! such a pleasing image this one !

    the clipped whiskers at the bottom are absolutely not a deal breaker and u had literally no space at the top to accommodate those clipped whiskers, and you are certainly the one who would have considered all those things before shooting but that brings me to a general tendency with me , i always am so focused on the focus points that i most of the time miss proper framing at one go especially with a moving subject because i try to keep the focus points on right areas and forget abt the composition in haste ( usually that happens when tiger's are the subject ), i guess practice is the best thing to overcome such sort of things .

    Is there anything else which can be done to overcome such blunders :) ??

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  13. #9
    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Thanks Akos and Haseeb for the kind comments. Haseeb - the best solution to what you describe is to shoot a little wider and then crop for comp. I'm not sure what lenses you have and use but this is a bit easier with a zoom lens than a fixed lens. I'm not suggesting that you pixel bash and crop the image down to a fraction of what it was. But if you are using a zoom that say goes to 400 mm and find yourself often shooting at 400 mm then back it off to 350 mm or so.

    I hope this helps.

    Rachel

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    Hi Rachel -- Thanks for your reply ! I use a 300mm 2.8 IS II lens most of the time and also a 70-200mm lens ! I always try to approach the subject as close as possible to avoid cropping at later stages to avoid harming the IQ keeping in mind the big contests also with the likes of WPOTY , etc , !!

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    Lifetime Member Andre Pretorius's Avatar
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    Hi Rachel

    Love the closeness and intimacy of this portrait. The leopard shows the "aloofness" that only a cat can.
    Looking at your techs, it was low light, maybe in the shade..
    The pupil on the leopard look fairly constricted, was she looking at the sun?
    What made you to decide to go B&W versus colour?
    Curious to know..
    Regards

    Andre.

    www.gappimages.com

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  17. #12
    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Thanks Andre. We were down in a drainage line where she had stashed the duiker kill. Seeing the reflection in the eye I think there must have been a bit coming through and she was looking into it. As to why I went B&W, purely for this month's theme which is B&W/Toned images. I processed the color version months ago. So it's time for you to dust off your B&W conversion skills too.


    Rachel

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    BPN Member Morkel Erasmus's Avatar
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    Nice tasteful conversion here, Rachel, with good tonal range and clarity.
    Nice composition too, given she was filling the frame and often one can neglect finer compositional matters as per Haseeb's comment...
    Morkel Erasmus

    WEBSITE


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