Tiger Cubs

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

At our local zoo, here in Peoria, IL, we are lucky enough to have had four Tiger cubs born to our only tiger. As you can imagine there has been great interest in them and a few days ago the zoo officials open the doors of their house and let them go outside for the first time. This is a shot of one of the cubs who had a need to naw on his mothers tail. Hope ypu all enjoy the image and those of you that might be close enough to drop in to see them, please do, as you won't be sorry. shooting info as follows:
Nikon D4
2012:09:06 11:33:39
420mm
420mm (in 35mm film)
1/160 sec, f/7.1
Mode: Av
Metering: Multi-segment
Exp comp: +1/3
ISO: 800
AF mode: AF-C
White balance: SUNNY+2
Flash: Off
File size: 20.3MB
Image size: 160 x 120
Color space: AdobeRGB
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Contrast: Normal

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Mac, firstly photographing Tigers in any location is awesome, so if anyone gets a chance, do it, you certainly won't regret it! Was the image shot through glass Mac?

I like the way you captured the playful moment and the tail held between mouth & paw, Mom seems content for the cub to play. Regarding the image, I think you needed more SS for this and the image looks over sharpened and slightly contrasty with the Blacks & Whites. I would look back at the RAW and adjust the Exposure & Highlights, toggling between the two to try and get anymore detail from the tail and perhaps easing off on the black and/or contrast?. There also seems to me a Blue cast in the whites, emphasised in the depth of the green grass. I would also suggest running a Luminosity layer mask to help bring back some depth into the RHS of the body/paw at a % Opacity. Lastly some NR on the top part of the BKG would also help IMHO.

Hope this helps.

TFS
Steve

[Marina Scarr]

What a great playful moment you captured here. It brought a smile to my face. Steve made very good points. What is most bothersome to me is the noise in the upper part of the image.

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Thanks to Steve and Marina for your thoughtful opinions of my image of the tiger cubs. To answer Steve's question as to whether I had to shoot through glass? no I didn't, in fact I had to shoot through a vertical wire fence which was about two feet away from the end of the camera's lens. I made the changes to the image and am reposting it below. It is stikingly better with your suggestions applied. One thing that really surprised me and that was the noise in the BG as I was shooting with a Nikon D4 which you would think at an ISO of 800 whould have no disernable noise, bit obviously that is not the case. Thanks again and I hope you like the repost.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Mac, certainly a big improvement, however am viewing 'off-site' so the laptop is not the most accurate, but I'll give it a shot, hope others will chime in too.

Firstly when you applied the sharpening did you apply it overall, 'blanket', or selectively applied it? If so, that would impact on any noise, but agree, surprised about how bad it is in the BKG. The sharpening looks better, ditto the grass BKG in the RP, but the cubs look a bit too 'orange', however there is still tinges of colour in the whites too.

If you are working in ACR get the exposure looking right, then holding down the alt key (I think) the image should go black, with any highlights indicated, just then move the slider back to the LHS to pull any blown highlights back, guess you need to toggle between the two, this might help the whites overall? Ideally you want the two triangles in the Histogram to be dark grey.

I think you are going in the right direction with this, it just needs some refinement.

BTW how often do you calibrate your monitor?

Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Mac,
agree with the comments above so no need of adding the major stuff.
The RP is an improvement, but i think it is still to bright on RHS and the colors are too warm now overall.The grass might be ok, but i think it too strong on the yellow side.
The tigers are looking more orange now, do not think they are that orange, maybe in the indian jungle when the light is reflected by the autumn colors in dry season.
Do not know what subspecies of tigers you have captured ,cause they all are very much variable in color.

I worked a bit on the colors and the lightness in shadows and highlights, my view of this nice intimate shot of this little tiger.
BTW i like the image content a lot.

Cheers Andreas

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Hi all,
Here is the latest version of the tiger cub. I have tried to incorporate all of your suggestions and I hope you like the result. I do. To answer a couple of questions posed, the tiger is of the Amur species, doesn't mean much to me, but maybe to someone else as far as color is concerned. I calibrate my monitor about once a week. Let me know what you think of the latest version and thank you all again for the help.
Mac

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Mac, I think you might have taken a step back IMHO, sorry. The detail, sharpness and clarity was good on the RP, but the last one now has artifacts that were never present in either RP, look at the most visible paw, looks like patches of NR applied???? Can't comment on the colour, but the grass looks similar to the OP, the second looks better. Andrea's RP is better but still retains the red & blue fringes within the whites.

Steve

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Steve
I honestly can't see what you are referring to on the paw. I only used NR on the background so I can't figure out what you are seeing and I am looking at the original. Thanks a lot for all the help, I really appreciate it.
Mac

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Mac, these are the patches I was referring too.

I just wonder if you go back to the RAW and adjust the temperature, avoiding any saturation may help to avoid the 'orange' in the Tigers & help balance the green grasses? What was the colour temp when shot?

cheers
Steve

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Steve
This is my last attempt with this file. This time I adjusted the WB using LR4 ro daylight. It would appear that it my have solved the problem, but my 72 year old eyes may not be good enough. Please let me know what you or anyone sees. Thanks again and I will stop bothering you.

Mac