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King's day
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King's day

by Betty-Lou Luyken

Gallery: WildlifePosted April 27, 201590 views4 comments

Today it is King's day in my country, The Netherlands, so an image of the king of the animals today. This is a scan of a slide. I took this image in 2006, when I wasn't shooting digital yet.

Konika Minolta Dynax 5, probably with a Sigma 150-500 mm telelens. Velvia 50 ISO  slide film.

It was taken in Sweetwater's Kenya, where there were 3 brothers and some females. This image was used in 2007 by ING Carlease for their magazine CARL in The Netherlands.

Comments

4 comments
Comment posted by Keith Bauer on April 27, 2015 at 11:34 AM

A very pleasing image.  Looks like the scan held up very well.  Thank goodness we don't have to deal with the issues of Velvia any more!!

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments
Comment posted by Betty-Lou Luyken on April 27, 2015 at 12:13 PM

You're right, Keith. Digital is so much easier.

Registered on July 9, 2007, 17 Posts, 82 Comments
Comment posted by Jagdeep Rajput on April 28, 2015 at 8:44 AM

I like the side lighting n pose. Nice job on scanning but I feel the saturation is on the plus side, no wonder what velvia was known for.

Jagdeep Rajput

Registered on April 29, 2008, 686 Posts, 2857 Comments
Comment posted by Brad Hill on April 30, 2015 at 5:36 PM

Hi Betty-Lou,

A classic image is a classic image - regardless of when it was shot (and in my view that's one of the beauties of photography!). And this one is a classic!

While I really like the image you posted, for my taste there's a little too much room on the right and not quite enough on the left, with the result that the lion appears to be looking OUT of the frame rather than into it. Even though this is a scan (and I haven't seen the original slide or original scan), I think a few post-processing tweaks could improve the shot. First, even though it's highly unlikely you can retrieve any highlights now, I'd reduce the exposure a little on the blown out part of the mane below the ear and shoulder region. You'd have to do this carefully - go too far and it would start to "gray out". And, the image does appear noticeably over-sharpended - if this happened after the scanning process it can probably be backed off a little...

Cheers...

Brad

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