Lion cub dawn.

[Marc Mol]

A 5 month old lion cub from the Vumbi pride suveys another dramatic dawn sky across the open grassland plains of the Serengeti.

There are 2 alternates here, one was silhouette, and that works well, but using the D850's superb low ISO dynamic range opted to bring out just enough shadow detail in the lion & log.

Nikon D850
Nikkor 70-200E FL VR + 1.4tcIII
f/4
1/800s
ISO160@ 280mm
1400px

Bean bag, front pax seat, F/F, curves, levels, TK adj's in ACR & PS CC '18

Cheers
Marc

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Marc ,what a great mood captured, love it.
Lovely colors , soft light and the overall design with the cub on that log .
If this was mine i would crop some of the LHS and top , to place the cub more off center .
Nice work and sighting ..
TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Marc - This is beautiful and I think just the right amount of detail coming through. Love the log as a perch for the lion. A small point but in an ideal world I would prefer the whole lion below the horizon line (not sure if you may have that in another frame). Andreas' crop suggestion is a good one and worth exploring.

TFS,
Rachel

[Marc Mol]

Many thanks Rachel & Andreas.

A small point but in an ideal world I would prefer the whole lion below the horizon line (not sure if you may have that in another frame). Andreas' crop suggestion is a good one and worth exploring.

TFS,
Rachel

Yes I agree on the intersecting horizon, and was going to mention as a self-critique, and when I captured this sequence, you couldn't see the cub thru viewfinder for the dark FG and had thought I had enough lower room, evidently not.

[John Mack]

Beautiful color in this frame. Looks like that little guy is well fed. The composition works well.

[Jay Shah]

Excellent image Marc. I am sure as you clicked the shutter, you would have known here is something special..Liked this edit. Would look forward to silhouette.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Marc -- Loved the colours here. What beautiful frame. Very nice work on the field. Agree with the crop suggestion by Andreas , worth trying. But a beautiful frame with Africa written all over it.

TFS !

[Gabriela Plesea]

Sweet, very sweet Superb scene. Haseeb took the words out of my mouth: "...this has Africa written all over it".

All I would change here is a tiny crop from the LHS, as per Andreas above.

Beautiful capture Marc, love the colours and especially the mood, well seen and taken, congratulations!!!

Kind regards,

[Andrew McLachlan]

Beautiful capture Marc...great colours...agree with Andreas on the crop and Rachel on the lion cub merging with the horizon line (not a deal breaker though)

[Basil Dardagan]

Marc your images continue to leave me gob smacked and amazed. Thank you for sharing this beauty. IMHO the crop as is works really well as it causes more attention to be placed on the beautiful environment /background