Canadian Lynx

Ashley: Beautiful cat and a superb capture. Nicely done.>=))>

Exceptional image!
The detail is great, a really nice pose, and captivating eyes!
The only possible improvement would have been getting the tufts in view -

Sandy

Very neat shot, Ashley. Nice pose, great eye contact, superb detail !
Mauro

Wonderful image with great contact.The eyes are superb.
Processing is spot on for me - The fur is beautiful and the dark background really makes the subject stand out. (Maybe consider cloning the two white dots in the upper right corner, might draw a little bit of the attention)

Ashley, another outstanding cat portrait. Too bad you could not have gotten the ear tufts, as they help to define these lynx. Could have moved a bit to get the lynx's head in front of the post which would have let the tufts show? Good job of getting through the wire. Thanks for sharing, looking forward to more.

Hi Ashley,

The biologist in me is forcing me to lead off with a somewhat pedantic comment: Unless this cat carries a Canadian passport, it's a Canada Lynx, not a Canadian Lynx!

Nicely done - a very beautiful "studio" portrait of a fine animal (even if he/she is not a Canadian!). Technically this looks strong (with one exception) and is a pleasure to look at. My first nit on this image is from the perspective of an image buyer (or seller!) - tho' you could do absolutely nothing about it, that rock in the foreground has gotta go! It looks just way too artificial! By "gotta go" I'm meaning from the zoo, not from your image (I'm not even remotely suggesting an work in Photoshop to rid us of the rock)!

The one technical detail that I'd work on is the colour cast/white balance - on my monitors the cat looks considerably too yellow. It's not so much the brown regions, but the white regions aren't white - they're quite yellow. There are many ways to address this and I'm sure you're aware of how to proceed (if you choose to) with adjusting this - could approach it during raw conversion or a number of ways in Photoshop after conversion.

Oops - just looked again - one other minor detail - that clipped foot...a minor but noticeable issue...

Cheers...thanks for sharing this one - a very fine shot!

Brad

Excellent detail. It takes the larger image to see how nice it is. The gaze is also riveting. Well done.

Very well done, Ashley. I like the eye contact, the well defined fur and those front paws.

I like the direct eye contact, very engaging. One drawback of the dark background is that the ear tuft disappears. I like the side lighting.

Many thanks Bill, Sandy, Mauro, Johan, John, Brad, Rick, Wayne, and Gary, for your observations, comments and suggestions, all of which are very much appreciated :^)

Sandy, John & Gary: Bearing in mind I was having to shoot this through a wire mesh fence, it didn't leave me with much choice of angle to my left or right, as I needed the largest opening in the mesh in order to focus fully on the subject without there being any blur from the wire that would come as a consequence of aiming through a narrower gap, which was definitely the biggest challenge I faced.

This hopefully explains why I wasn't able to move further to my left, which otherwise might well have allowed me to feature fully both tufts of the subject's ears by setting them against the pale material directly behind it. All the same, after countless times of looking at this image and considering this very same point, I eventually came to the conclusion that, given a choice between how I was able to capture this image, as shown here, and another taken from further to my left, that would show even more of the awful artificial tree they use as a prop in this enclosure, I'm certain I'd prefer this shot even at the expense of those beautiful tufts ;^)

Johan: Dohhh! How the heck did I miss those white marks in the upper right of the frame?!?!? ;^. Well spotted my friend, and of course they can be easily removed, thanks for pointing this out :^)

Brad: You may find this difficult to believe, but whenever Thailand allows an animal into the country to be exhibited at a zoo, the authorities insist on an accompanying passport, a copy of which has to been lamented and placed on prominent display in front of the animal's enclosure, hence, this Lynx is now considered a Canadian ex-pat ......... OK, jus' playin' witcha' buddy ;^p But the name plate in front of this gorgeous cat's enclosure does indeed read "Canadian Lynx" ... and thanks for setting me straight - LOL ;^)

Yep, nothing I can really do about the extremely artificial looking rocks (what you're seeing here is actually supposed to represent more of a broken off branch, which is attached to the trunk of the "cement" tree you see in the background!) and other stuff the design team at the zoo conjure up to create a more "natural looking" environment (yeah, right!), but more often than not I will only keep photos that completely omit anything that looks to be manmade, although this image is one of the exceptions.

Re the whites of the fur appearing to be too yellow, you are indeed correct yet again, and this almost certainly came as result of my having enriched the overall colours a tad too much, something I can easily remedy and will do so before I go to print.

As to the clipped foot - Wow! Nothing gets past you Brad ... then again, that's why I'm coming to love you so much - LOL ;^p - yep, that bothers me too every time I look at this image, but not so much that I'd consider deleting it from my files ;^)

OK, hope this response wasn't too long-winded, but I guess some of you are already becoming a little familiar with my sometimes verbose style of writing ;^) Thanks again everyone, and wishing you all an excellent week ahead :^)

Ashley

Hi Ashley, well done again on the sharpness in the prevailing conditions and with your shutter speed used, all of this is great practice for when you get out in the wild :) I like the ears froward and good eye contact and I like the black background too. As you say, the tufts are unfortunately lost but hey, thats not too bad. I agree with Brad, the colour is a bit too yellow on my monitor maybe a slight adjustment with your white balance, try pushing one out at around 4500 Kelvin as a starting point, if it is still too warm, go down to 4000 k, if too cold, go back up to 5000 K, other than that I like this shot a lot, nice pose and eye contact, cheers Stu

Thanks for your comments and suggestions Stu, and I will indeed be more careful in the future when processing any animals that have white parts in it's fur or, for that matter I guess, in it's feathers, very good point to note :^)

Wishing you a great one ahead my friend :^)

Ashley