King of the Hill

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

A cheetah rests on a little hillock at the Mara. I wanted to see Cheetahs this trip & was rewarded with good sightings. We saw almost 10 of them. Thanks for comments on my previous posts.
5D III
700mm
1/2000
f/8
ISO 800

[Glenn Pure]

Sanjeev, another great cheetah shot that is making me envious again! I like the colours in the background here a lot. Wonder if a slightly tighter crop would work? I'd be tempted to lighten the shadows on the cat some more.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Sanjeev - The cheetah gave you a nice pose and head turn. The distant bg is nice with the layers of colors. You handled the mixed light well but there are some hot hls and the blacks of the tail are choked.

TFS,
Rachel

[John Mack]

Cool cheetah image here like the background and the detail.

[Basil Dardagan]

Awesome relaxed cheetah image !! What a regal animal ! The elevated fore ground creating the oof background makes the image for me. Its always a pity that it is almost impossible to get better exposure of these guys eyes after the sun has risen too far. The overall crop is perfectly balanced imo

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sanjeev, nice and simple with a killer BKG. It does look a bit flat and I think getting some colour/life back into the FG would help. If you have time then I would make a virtual copy and then remove some of the lighter dark 'blobs' in the BKG as it's such a lovey backdrop. The only bug for me is the dung heap sadly.

TFS
Steve

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Your RP is excellent Steve. Yeah the BG was sweet. Couldn't do much about that heap though.

[Steve Kaluski]

Your RP is excellent Steve. Yeah the BG was sweet.

Thank you Sanjeev, but as always, you have done all the hard work.

- Upped the exposure!!!!
- Upped the Temp a fraction
- Opened the shadows up
- Added some controlled Saturation to the BKG
- Added some controlled Saturation & Clarity to the FG
- Cleaned up, to a degree the BKG as suggested

The OP may well be very reflective, but there is no harm in occasionally giving the image another nudge and taking it up another notch if that's ok.

Couldn't do much about that heap though.

Most vehicles carry a spade .

Glad to hear you had some excellent sightings on your trip, well worth the travel and early starts.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Sanjeev,

One of your nicest images from this last trip, as far as I am concerned. Nice POV, well framed, love the stance from this cheetah.

The BG and its colours, just lovely - I see what Steve means about cleaning up the blobs, they are probably just trees but look a bit like dust bunnies, taming them makes a heck of a difference.

Curious about the dung-like pile, not sure it is actually dung?

Great work Sanjeev and some very nice touches from Steve, I truly enjoyed viewing

Have a lovely week-end,