Desert Elephants

[Rachel Hollander]

I was fortunate to spend most of a morning photographing and observing the desert elephants in Damaraland, Namibia. I wanted to share a bit more of their habitat in my first post from the region. They are most often found where we found them, in the dry riverbed.

Canon 5DIII
70-200 II @ 168mm
1/1250
f5
ISO 400
EC +1
HH from safari vehicle, Luminosity mask, selective dodging and burning, curves adjustment, selective color adjusments, sharpened in CS5. This is ff.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Ken Watkins]

Rachel,

This brings back fond memories have bot been up there for I think 8 years, last time everything that could fall off our Land Rover did and we rescued a couple of tourists whose vehicle had sunk in the sand.

This is a truly wild and barren landscape just the sort of place you expect not to find Elephants.

This is very nice indeed we mainly found them sleeping leaning head first against trees in the shade.

The colours are to my fading memory perfectly depicted here.

My main nit is the clipping of the top of the ridge, personally I would have preferred more sky and less foreground, but that is just being picky. There are just too many places to go and not enough time.

[Marina Scarr]

Nice to see the elephants in all of their environment, but wish for more space in the FG and more of space over the mountains.

[Steve Kaluski]

I wanted to share a bit more of their habitat in my first post from the region.

Well I think you did that Rachel.

Now getting back to critiquing, as you had the SS I think you could have afforded more DOF on this one IMHO, was f/5 from a previous setting? Generating a little more above the image is easy and you could do that no problem now, but I would drop the Magenta in the blue of the sky if you did, it looks better. Interesting Marina would like more FG, I would prefer less :S3: You could tweak the whites in Levels by a fraction, likewise perhaps a one degree CW rotation. Another nice, clean image.

TFS
Steve

[Ken Watkins]

as you had the SS I think you could have afforded more DOF on this one IMHO,

Not to sure that I understand what would have been improved with more DOF, which parts of the image require this as the subjects seem pretty good to me.Why would you prefer more of the FG and BG albeit not much to be in focus?

[Morkel Erasmus]

What a fantabulous sighting Rachel! Many folks go there to see them and come back empty-handed. :5
I love the inclusion of the environment, but also rue the "nipping" of the mountaintop, would have gladly sacrificed some OOF FG for more on top, would even lop some off the bottom as presented too :w3
Colours look great. More DOF would have worked well, but I feel there's enough detail in the BG for my tastes.

I hear what Steve is saying about the sky - but our deserts down south can have that bleh colour in the sky on dusty days, your call...

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions everyone. I took another look at the images and one a couple of images later had a bit more space above and also a bit more dof at 7.1. I blame jetlag and also the better posture of the youngest elephant for selecting that op for pp in the first place. I hope no one minds but here's the shot from a couple of frames later. Steve - the sky color is due to the dust and the moisture that comes in from the coast so I left it as is.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Ken Watkins]

Rachel,

This is even better than the first one a great sense of environment, unfortunately I can not use the jet lag excuse myself:w3

Sky colours are often strange in Africa!

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, firstly I would agree, the youngster in the OP has a better posture, however, having more sky and the added DOF, overall, the image has more going for it, so I guess it's a trade off. Regarding the sky I hear what you and Morkel are saying, thanks.

cheers
Steve :wave:

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Steve and Ken.

[Robert Amoruso]

Rachel,

I like the repost w/o the mountain tops touching the frame. At the bottom, I would remove more of the OOF FG with a crop.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Robert:cheers: