Old Lion

[Ken Watkins]

Taken in Passarge Valley, Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana 6th March 2009

EOS 1D Mk III

500mm F4 hand-held


F5.6, ISO 3200, 1/40

[Dave Mills]

Hi Ken, Nice image of a gnarled old warrior. I would run a bit of noise reduction in the backround....

[Robert Amoruso]

Ken,

I really think you captured the character of the lion well here. That face tells a powerful story. Agree on the noise reduction for the BG but you might want to consider desaturating the green too.

[Fabs Forns]

Agree with Robert on the NR and desaturation. Great facial expression, I may have been tempted to capture this in a vertical format.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Wonderful portrait of this old man. Sad to see all the battle scars, but I guess he was lucky and well established so scars are the way of life and proof of his success. Wonder if the right eye was injured? Gosh, tough life and other than the suggestions from Fabs, Robert and Dave, you have captured the essence of his majestic aura perfectly. Congratulations! :)

[Grady Weed]

I agree with Robert on the noise and Fabs about the green. Tone it down some. But you really got the old man here.

[Ken Watkins]

Having taken another look I totally agree with the above comments it really does look much too "artificial".

Hopefully this looks a little better.

[Grady Weed]

Much much better. The greens are more natural looking. And the magenta cast is gone from the lion. Way to go.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Ken,
The first post had too much of saturation. The greens were unnatural. The repost looks better. This would have worked as a vertical as well. The lions face shows lot of character. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Ed Cordes]

Second post is much better. The suggestion of vertical is a good one. Perhaps crop with just a bit of space on the right so the Lion is looking into the frame a little.