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Thread: Another Leopard

  1. #1
    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Taken in the Sabi Sands, South Africa. We spent almost the entire afternoon/evening game drive following this leopard through thick brush and a dry river bed.

    Canon 50D
    100-400 at 350mm
    Tv 1/640
    Av f9.0
    ISO 400

    C&C welcome and appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Rachel
    Last edited by Steve Kaluski; 05-20-2010 at 03:38 PM. Reason: Merged posts

  2. #2
    BPN Viewer Tom Graham's Avatar
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    Nice eye level perspective, hard to get. Like its stare and semi-crouch. A bit to much grass and twigs for me. This cropped? If so, a bit tight. It took me a while to learn not to crop in camera as if I were shooting 35mm chrome. A great thing with digital is to frame "loose" with composition cropping in post processing.
    (I've forgotten if you said, which Sabi Sand camp were you at?)
    Tom

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    lovely striking pose by leopard
    TFS

  4. #4
    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Hi Rachel, love the pose as you know, it does convey the feeling of stalking.

    Firstly something like this I would have used f/5.6 as there would be enough DOF where you need it, but it would have helped to slightly diffuse the BG and more importantly give you a higher shutter speed. Branches & twigs I can live with as you CANNOT change this, nor should you, as it would destroy the whole feeling of the image. If you have more around you subject then I would add more to the foot of the image and less above, also cropping slightly off the rh too, to lose the bright vertical broken branch. You could just drop the exposure overall and leave the Leopard, as it makes it pop, but that might be rather tricky and doesn't warrant it I think?

    My main concert is that is is not that sharp, which might be slight camera shake or the lens, as it is know occasionally to be soft at full tilt, but this might have been resolved with newer models, or is this a big crop? No more sharpening will help and in fact makes the image worse sadly.

    By posting more of these I hope you will be better equipped for your next trip.

    TFS
    Steve
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

  5. #5
    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Thanks all for the comments. This isn't cropped. I think the sharpness issue is probably more a function of camera shake as the vehicle was running at the time because we were moving through the brush with the leopard, I was also a little off with the focus being on the nose more than the eye and of course the leopard was moving. I just really liked the stance of the leopard and the perspective. It was one of the few times I could get a low perspective from the vehicle and it was due to us being slightly below as the leopard came over the short rise.

    Tom - I was at Singita with a group of friends and we stayed at Castleton which is only available to groups.

    Thanks again,

    Rachel

  6. #6
    Ákos Lumnitzer
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    Might be a few technical deficiencies as mentioned but I still like this natural, in habitat, image of this majestic cat. :) Well done!

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