Cheetah @ Pre-dawn

[Morkel Erasmus]

Another shot of the cheetah we found next to the vehicle in the pre-dawn light in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

The red colour you see is the red sand dunes of the Kalahari. The pace that the cat was walking at coupled with the light available made image sharpness a battle.

Techs:
Canon 40D with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 310mm
f5.6 @ 1/250 SS @ ISO-800
Exp -1

[Harshad Barve]

Morkelbhai

What a good looking speciman and grass around adding so much
Once again I can see color cast here
Except color cast everything is spot on
TFS

[Harshad Barve]

I have tried on small JPEG but you can do it better on RAW , I hope you dont mind :D

[Robert Amoruso]

Morkel,

I thin you picked a good looking BG to contrast the cat with. Good sharpness on him. Agree on the color cast needing correction.

[David Fletcher]

Nice feel to this Morkel. Can see a color cast too as Harshad mentioned. Not wanting to over cook anything I moved sliders IN Color Balance, CS4, to -11 Red. +3 Green & -13 Yellow.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Harshad bhai, Dave & Robert.

I corrected the cast in the original now, also didn't want to change too much cause it pretty much resembles what I saw on the day.

[Harshad Barve]

thanks Harshad bhai, Dave & Robert.

also didn't want to change too much cause it pretty much resembles what I saw on the day.

Morkelbhai dosnt need to change now , Fabulous repost :):)
TFS

[David Fletcher]

Morkelbhai dosnt need to change now , Fabulous repost :):)
TFS

Ditto Harshad. Nicely done! :)

[Stu Bowie]

Hey Mork, good looking cheetah, and nice to see him in the open. The surrounding grasses dont bother me. After my trip to Kruger, I decided Afica is africa, and animals will be in busy bush, and leave the image as is. Well captured mate.

[Fabs Forns]

Very nice body posture and specimen. Color corrections look much better. Animals in the wild usually surround themselves with weeds. They do in in purpose to aggravate photographers :)

[Hilary Hann]

A beautiful looking cat and I like the colour and texture of the grasses, especially the long grass in the bg. Like the repost without the colour cast better than the original.

[John Blumenkamp]

Nice setting here Morkel and I really like your repost.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks a lot for the kind feedback everyone :)
it was quite a great sighting...:)

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Beautiful image of one of my favorite species. Love the composition with the grasses and your repost really made a difference. Love this one Morkel.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thank you Judy

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice one Morkel! I agree about the colour cast. Your repost is better.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[John Ippolito]

I really like this Morkel, your repost is spot on colorwise. Lovely comp, environment, and specimen. Well done indeed!

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Sabyasachi & John :)