Practical Photography

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Shooting at
eye-level has
made the pic
intimate and
engaging
Portrait of a leopard
by Athula Dissanayake
During an early morning
game drive in the Yala
National Park, Sri Lanka,
I spotted this big male
leopard by the road. I
anticipated some action,
so I set up my Canon 70D and 500mm
lens, and then waited. It eventually got
up to stalk a buffalo calf, providing a
frame-filling shot with an intense
stare. I steadied the lens on a beanbag
to reduce camera shake. In Photoshop
I boosted the brightness, contrast and
sharpening.
500px.com/athuladis
Dan says: It’s not every day that readers
send in a picture of a leopard. Athula’s
big cat has a piercing gaze, which is
sure to turn heads. He focused on the
eyes to make sure these were the focal
point and they’re incredibly sharp.
This is partly thanks to Athula’s first-rate
camera gear, but also because he used
a fast shutter speed and a beanbag to
reduce camera shake. Getting down low
to the leopard’s eye-level adds intimacy.
Shooting from ground-level is the easiest
way to make your wildlife pictures more
engaging. It may mean getting muddy
clothes, but it doesn’t cost a penny.
There’s some fantastic bokeh
(background blur) in this image,
which is full of autumnal shades of
Turn down the noise
Canon 70D | 500mm | f/4.5 | 1/640sec | ISO 800
brown and yellow. This complements
the leopard’s coat to a tee.
Although this picture is amazingly
sharp, there’s a fair bit of digital noise.
This may be because sharpening has been
applied across the whole image, so the
background noise has been sharpened
too. In RAW editing software you can add
a Sharpening Mask and Noise Reduction
to make this less apparent (see panel).
The leopard’s nearest eye falls in
the middle of the shot, where the more
reliable central active AF point was
positioned. This has ensured the eye is
in focus, though some additional ‘active’
space in front of the leopard would make
for a stronger composition, giving the
impression it has room to move in to.
Digital noise is more obvious in pictures taken
with a high ISO value. Reduce this in Lightroom
by going to the Develop module and finding the
Detail tab. Under Noise Reduction set the
Luminance slider to 30 to remove noise across
the whole pic. Set the Sharpening Amount to 50
to bring back detail. Hold the Alt key down and
adjust the Masking Slider. Tweak the slider until
areas to sharpen are shown in white – this stops
you from sharpening the background noise.
114 PRACTICAL PHOTOGRAPHY