The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
We found this leopard resting in a tree after a kill. She was driven off the kill by hyenas, but not until she had her fill. I’ve attached a second close-up shot to show the full belly. On leaving I looked back and saw that the leopard was easily visible in the tree and that the sky made a vey nice backdrop.
Specific Feedback
She doesn’t occupy much of the first image but I think it provides a reasonable depiction of her in her environment. What do you think? If you were to crop (I chose not to) the first image, what would your crop look like?
Technical Details
Image 1: 1/200, f/8 Auto ISO 640 with 14-35 lens at 19mm
Image 2: 1/320, f/7.1 Auto ISO250 with 100-500 lens at 200 mm
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Richard, it’s hard to believe that big a cat with a full stomach can climb that high in a tree. Excellent view of her, and nice environmental shot. The closeup is a great look at a full belly. Your crop here works, but you might try moving the leopard to the right a bit. I’m on my laptop now, but I’ll play with this later and offer a suggested crop.
Excellent image!
Richard, I’m glad you included both the environment shot and the closeup of this beautiful fat cat. How she got up there is amazing to ponder. She looks both very satisfied, and very miserable. She must have had a good feed before the hyena’s showed up, and no wonder she didn’t fight them too hard to keep it.
Sandy and Ed: thanks for your comments and Sandy, thanks for the offer to crop. It’s always interesting to get other folks perspectives.
Ed: actually the leolpard is quite content in the tree with her full belly and she is safe from others (primarily lions and hyenas) who might inflict injury.
To give you an idea of just how strong a leopard is, I’ll recount a sighting from a few years back. We had just gone around a curve when the tracker spotted leopard tracks in the road. While the guide and tracke were looking at the tracks, we heard the impalas sound the alarm in the nearby bush.
They got back in the car and turned around to retrace our steps. As we turned the curve we saw a leopard with a full grown male impala in its mouth being chased by hyenas. The leopard bounded up the tree in 4 or 5 leaps to reach a branch about 20 feet above ground. It was then we realized that the impala was still alive as it began to kick. The leopard finished its kill high up in the tree.
A full grown male impala will weigh between 88-168 pounds (per Wikipedia) which gives you an idea of just how strong big cats, and in this case the leopard, really are.
Richard, this is the crop I had in mind. The pixels didn’t hold up, of course, since it was quite a large crop, and then I cropped even further. You’d need to start with the full raw file and then you could crop my version even further, if you chose.
An excellent pair of images as posted!
