Rough play

[Glenn Pure]

Thought I would get this in before the monthly theme closed and make an appearance after a break away from BPN. I think this will be my absolute final leopard post. I have held off until now because of that @#@%@#% annoying stick in the lower right which I wasn't able to avoid in the rush and excitement getting this frame. Next time... The animal on the left of the shot is the mother of the 6 month old cub who is having his 'ear chewed'. This actually morphed into a neck bite and was all quite friendly and a fun interaction to watch. The images is from the Okavango Delta in Botswana and crop is about 80 or 90% of the frame area. Hope you all get some enjoyment from it in spite of the OOF stick.

Thanks for looking and any comments you may have. And apologies for my absence due to some projects at home and trip away. Also away later this week so will have limited capacity to spend much time on BPN for a little while yet.

Technical: Canon 80D with Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/800, f7.1, ISO 1000. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, Sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, reduced luminance NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements. Low level NR and some sharpening to leopards using Neat Image. Stronger NR to background. Lighting adjustments to animals and background selectively. Sharpened subject only (sharpness function: remove Gaussian blur, radius = 0.6 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - Glad to see you posting, even if only briefly. Nice action. The colors and sharpness look good. I agree with you about that stick, so frustrating. We've all had instances like that though. You said this is a crop. If you have all of mom's tail, I would include it.

TFS,
Rachel

[Marc Mol]

I have held off until now because of that @#@%@#% annoying stick in the lower right which I wasn't able to avoid in the rush and excitement getting this frame.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself Glenn,

if you had waited/hesitated for a better angle you would have likely missed mum's chastising behaviour! It's the joy, excitement and adrelanin rush that us wildlife photographers all love and why we return for more.

Techs lighting & quality all look pretty good here, and agree with Rachel on the tail, if you have it?

TFS

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Glenn!

Welcome back And what a fun image! Love the action, the "bite" of course, as well as the swishy tail of the little one! A wonderful behavioural frame and I am glad you decided to share, not sure why you say this is your final leopard post?

Sorry about the stick, I have the same issue with some images taken recently and share your frustration. Nice detail here where it matters. Composition works although it would be nice to have the tip of mom's tail

Sweet scene, love the rich colours, in terms of techs I think you got away with 1/800s, especially since you mentioned you had no support. Have you any images from this instance where you managed to zoom out a bit? I wouldn't mind to see a little more of the environment, busy as it may be.
Really enjoyed this, hope you find time to share more, I'll raise you a leopard image as soon as I process

Kind regards,

[Glenn Pure]

Many thanks for your comments Rachel, Marc and Gabriela. I agree it would be nice to have the full tail but sadly that is the left edge of the frame. Perhaps I should have cropped tighter and cut my losses on that? As for no more leopard posts, I don't think any of the few remaining shots that I kept are worth bothering with and this particular moment unfolded quite quickly so I grabbed what I could - none zoomed back, sorry. My other shots are largely variations on what I've posted already or have some deficiency that I find too annoying. As for capturing this at 1/800 sec, I did risk some motion blur from the animals. At that speed though, camera movement is unlikely to be a worry as, in my experience, the stabiliser in that lens does such a fine job (I think it is considerably better than the Mark I version that I used to own).

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Glen, a fun image with nice interaction, agree about the stick and missing tail but not much you could do about it, still this is nice and love the light and sharpness.

[haseeb badar]

HI Glenn -- Rather than the stick bothers me more. Yes, agreed, the stick is unfortunate but as Marc said, it is all part and parcel of wildlife photography. Nice colours and lovely moment, even the details are quite good. I would have gone for a slightly higher ss, provided that iso permitted that .

TFS !