Leopard Coming Down Tree
by Jorel Cuomo
Indian Leopard - Nagarhole National Park, India
------------------------------------------------------------
I've been non active in the forums for awhile. In Sep I was in South Africa. Oct in India, and leaving next week for Churchill for some Polar Bears for 2 weeks.
This past October I spent 20 days on safari in India. The jungles were lush and very green after the summer monsoons which provided an amazing backdrop for shooting in. This male Leopard was rather cooperative sleeping away in a tree during the evening. I photographed this cat the moment he came down the tree at 5000 ISO at only 1/40 with the help of a beanbag. I particularly enjoy the blurred paws given the slow shutter speed.
Canon 1DX + Canon 600mm F4 IS @1/40 F4 ISO 5000
Comments
2 commentslike you I like the blurred leg giving the image a sense of dynamics. Also the rich colors are great. For displaying purposes I may have tried a vertikal crop which in my opinion would emphasize the action a bit stronger.
The rich colours and strongly contrasting colour of the subject help make this one stand out. I tend to agree with Cay-Uwe re: the possible use of a vertical presentation on this shot. Alternately, if this is full frame and you have pixels to spare, I'd try cropping a little tighter on this one, with removal of some of the space on the bottom and right side of the frame (getting the tree a little more offset in the frame).
To be honest I'm a little torn about the blurred legs/paws. I think if you were closer to the subject the contrast between sharp and blurred sections of the subject may have been effective and conveyed "action" a little more. As posted the blurred paws don't really say "action" too loudly to me (but this is clearly personal preference and others may feel very differently).
Cheers...
Brad