Corcovado Cougar

Jeff, congratulations! What day was this? I am wondering if we passed each other at some point, because I've been saving my own Corcovado puma shots from last weekend. We had one feasting on a coati on my very last day. Also had an ocelot at Sirena a couple nights earlier. It's a magical place.

I think you did quite well with this, given the tough circumstances. The cat didn't do you any favors with the location and pose, but your exposure and processing look spot on to me.

Max

Thanks Max, it was amazing and pretty much a complete accident I ended up getting there. Now that I know I need to plan a trip to get back there with my wife so we can spend a few days. This was on Feb 21, and actually, looking at your tour itinerary, we did your tour in reverse, rented a house about 5km short of Bosque on the Osa, then drove out and overlapped in Savegre - we stayed at the Trogon Lodge that Sunday night

And thanks for the shot feedback, it's nice to know I'm pointed in the right direction. The opportunity was amazing in that the puma was in a tree about 30 ft up, not going anywhere because of the people hanging around taking pictures and video, so it wandered around up there and I got a chance to take a bunch of different shots I'm going through. We were there for about 40 minutes until another guide and park official came through letting us know the mother was coming, although I'm not clear on how they knew, and everyone needed to back away. So everyone backed off 40 ft or so opposite the direction the mother was coming from and the juvenile started working around to get down. The mother did show up briefly, pretty far away in the undergrowth on the other side, and I just managed to get one almost clear shot of the clearly adult, and gorgeous, puma, before it retreated, then we all got to watch the juvenile work its way down the tree and after its mother.

In my amateur nervousness I took about 350 pictures, most in shutter-priority matrix metered exposure compensated bracketed sets, as I had no idea how the mixed sunshine dimness was going to work out (and I'm learning that the best thing I can do at this stage of my experience is stay out of the way of my smart camera as much as I can) resulting in probably 15-20 I think could perhaps turn into something good. So I've got some work to do.

Great photo and story, thanks for sharing both.

Jeff,
This is a special image of a beautiful Cat.
Well Done . . .

Great image of a fortuitous encounter, well done Jeff.

Really nice capture. Good job on the exposure choice. I really like the pose you captured.

Good job on this one Jeff. The colors of both fur and leaves is really beatiful. Interesting pose. It looks like it is about to fall off any second.
It doesn't really distract in the web format, but if you are going to print this large there looks to be a bit of chromatic aberration that you might want to remove.

Thanks everyone for the comments, they're much appreciated.

Johan - thanks so much for mentioning the chromatic aberration, I'm sure it's obvious to you guys but it completely escaped me until you pointed it out, and is there in almost all my shots that have the sky highlights. That just hasn't even been on my list of things-to-look-for-and-handle in processing, as I'm just now trying to work through what that would look like if I was doing it for real - thanks. And the pose looks precarious because I'm probably shooting this at a 30-40 degree angle up into a tree, so he looks more sideways than he actually is, but it does make the pose look a little off and unnatural.

Your exposure on the cat is super...and the blown white sky is what it is. I think this might present best with a vertical, albeit squarish crop at the back of the shoulder.

Congratulations on ticking this species off your bucket list, they are elusive! The sleeping pose is very cool and unexpected. I like Lon's crop suggestion. If you have another photo with the entire cougar, that would be even better (possibly), even if there was glimpse of the hind end allowing the mind to fill in the body.

Great exposure in tricky conditions. I really like how the texture of the paws and head come through. In addition to the previous suggestions, anything to enhance the "soft" side of the puma would be great.

"I would love absolutely all critical comments and any help to end up with a shot, if possible, that technically does justice to the subject, as I'd love to put the best one I could on canvas and hang it on my wall."

Since this is full frame, I tried a square comp. It eliminated the bright spot on the belly with one move.
Then I did some clone/brush work on the other bright spots, and lightened the face a bit Jeff..

Difficult light with the brighter sky BG & cougar in shade, but well managed.
I like the sleeping? pose, and you did nicely to get this much of the face from your limited POV..

Hi Jeff,
One suggestion for hanging on your wall is to convert in PS.
Here's just one example, using the Nik SilverEfex antique plate filter..
PS - I like this one so much I have it on my desktop

Thanks so much for the comments and demo Howard, I do like the crop you made and the excellent touch up work. Touching up those bright spots on the fur makes perfect sense and you did it masterfully, but it just didn't even occur to me. Clearly I need to keep expanding my ideas about what's possible and "allowed" in photo touch up, I'm still stuck pretty much in the exposure/sharpen/crop mindset. And nice special effect - I grabbed the Nik tools when Google bundled them, but haven't even looked at them yet, as I'm still somewhat overwhelmed with just LR4 at this point.

If you're bored and curious I did put up a bunch of other cougar shots I got, awake ones, minimally processed, at
http://www.flickr.com/x/t/0099009/gp/37850536@N02/nk87a6
and would love any thoughts you had about any that stand out for you that you think I could profitably work.

thanks truckloads,
Jeff