Boris, one of a few

Gallery: WildlifePosted March 20, 2010648 views14 comments

Boris, is an Amur leopard currently at the Miller Park Zoo. Nice to photograph from outside of his enclosure. There are less than 30 of these leopards left in the wild. Boris is part of the program to try and keep this leopard from going extinct.

Canon XTi
1/160 @ f-5
ISO 400
55-250mm lens @ 135.
Hand held, shooting through the opening in the heavy duty wire.

Comments

14 comments

Comment posted by JACK NEAL on March 20, 2010 at 2:38 PM

Good capture and great detail. Thanks for sharing and for the explanation.

Registered on September 26, 2009, 131 Posts, 554 Comments

Comment posted by Carol Nichols on March 20, 2010 at 5:09 PM

John, what a magnificent animal this is and your photo has done him justice.

Registered on November 7, 2007, 161 Posts, 1420 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Gulash on March 20, 2010 at 6:34 PM

Wonderful portrait John. I like his knowing gaze and the paws up on the log. Don't say there are only 30 left in the wild....

Registered on January 28, 2005, 879 Posts, 12098 Comments

Comment posted by Robert Bunch on March 20, 2010 at 6:49 PM

That's a beautiful portrait of this cat. I like the soft light and the way he is set off by the dark BG. The log makes a nice platform for his paws and the colors go together well. Nice job.

Registered on May 18, 2004, 124 Posts, 2503 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Marquart on March 20, 2010 at 9:33 PM

Nice shot. After reading the info I see lots of sentimentality in the photo.

Registered on October 24, 2009, 126 Posts, 799 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on March 20, 2010 at 10:17 PM

I like the compositional element of the cat angling into the center of the frame, balanced nicely by the tree on the left. The detail of the paws on the horizontal log gives a friendly feeling. I also like the good eye and whisker detail. It would be nice to see this larger to fully assess detail, but at this size I suspect the front paws/claws are slightly less focused and maybe a if you had closed down a stop or so you could have rendered those equally sharp.

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments

Comment posted by Jagdeep Rajput on March 21, 2010 at 1:43 AM

A wonderful portrait n beautiful setting, but I find it low on sharpening.
Jagdeep Rajput

Registered on April 29, 2008, 686 Posts, 2857 Comments

Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on March 21, 2010 at 4:01 AM

Very nice John, those paws on the trunk give Boris a cute and playful look and both the horizontal and vertical tree trunks frame him nicely. The catchlights in the eyes help to make these wonderful focal points. The nice smooth BG helps a lot as well. My only wish would be to see this larger.

Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments

Comment posted by Joe Sulik on March 21, 2010 at 10:49 PM

Hi John, we have an Amur at the MN Zoo, and they really are beautiful animals. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on January 7, 2009, 51 Posts, 165 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on March 22, 2010 at 10:03 AM

Hi John,

Very nice portrait and thanks for the background info, even if in this case it's on the sad side! I love this soft tones in this shot - the colour palette is narrow but very visually appealing to me. My only nit is an extremely minor one - I'm thinking that if Boris was positioned just ever so slightly to the right, I think the image would be balanced even better. Very simple, very effective.

Thanks for sharing this with us!

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments

Comment posted by Carol Nichols on March 22, 2010 at 5:19 PM

Congrats on the EP

Registered on November 7, 2007, 161 Posts, 1420 Comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on March 23, 2010 at 2:11 AM

Wonderful image! Great pose, fine detail, and nice eyes.
Congrats on the EP!
Sandy r

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Angela Classen on March 24, 2010 at 10:16 AM

Hey John, big congrats on the EP for this shot

Boris posed nicely for you! He is a beautiful cat. Love the details in the whiskers. Thanks for sharing the shot and the story.

Registered on June 13, 2007, 434 Posts, 2742 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on March 26, 2010 at 8:32 PM

Congrats John

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments