sunset snack

[Carole Deschuymere]

In Mana pools I found a pride of lions who had killed a buffalo. At sunset they started feeding again, one by one. This young male had learned a lesson the hard way: don't mess with porcupines!!! the quill in his chest was stuck during my whole stay, and the wound was seriously infected. He also had a bad cough. Hope he got the quill out, and healed well.
ISO 640
f/4.5
1/1600
Canon 1D mark IV
Canon EF 500mm f/4 L IS USM

I have brightened the shadows a bit, added a little bit of clarity, added unsharp mask, and that's about it. Anyone suggestions how I can improve this image?


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[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Carole, you certainly were very fortunate with your sighting, and have got stuck into the surrounding action. :cheers:

Personally I feel this image is getting into the realms of subtlety tweaks and personal preference. The crop works well, although you could loose about an inch off the LHS (?). I wouldn't think the inclusion of the feet would have helped as the posture, angle and general content explains the situation perfectly. The plumes of dust, shafts of light and flying bugs all add in building the overall picture/scene for the viewer.

So, how could this be improved, well I think you are almost there, as I said, additional thoughts are perhaps more personal POV.

- I would be selective and just tone the very bright highlight to the rear of the carcass on the hide, where the light hits it, a very small area, plus look at the sharpening mask. If you follow the diagonally down along the outline of the carcass from the jaw of the lioness you will see a small halo.
- I think you can get some more tone in overall which helps bring out the detail. Personally I wouldn't use things like Tonal contrast because you are adding more black, but channel masks (a little complicated to expand on an email, but about 5 mins visually)
- Adjust some areas with Curves, again just to bring out some defining depth & form
- I've tweaked the red a little in Curves in the mid tones, just dropped it to 51 not 50
- Clone the two white spots on the under belly of the Buff.

I'm not saying this is the way to go, but just my take, hopefully others will chime in too. If in PS you put them side by side you will see the differences and perhaps some subtle ones like the hoofs, more detail there. All this ideally should be done in the RAW module, creating very little work then needed in PS and meaning that the result will be far greater as you have more to work with information. Hope this helps, but I think it's a balancing act between the two.

Like you, I hope the lion recovers, but from your description it sounds quite serious.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Carole - good action, well captured. I don't mind the head angled slightly away or the missing legs on this one because you can still feel the lion tugging backwards (though I would like to see wider views of the entire scene if you captured any). The shafts of light and dust create a good feeling of the chaos. Techs look good and Steve's tweaks have taken it up a notch. I too hope the lion recovers, sounds like a painful lesson to learn about porcupines but I think the quill adds to the whole story.

TFS,
Rachel

[Carole Deschuymere]

Thank you Rachel and Steve! I haven't cropped the image, and I didn't get any wider angles. 500 fix, was not too close first, but the lion started pulling the carcass closer, and couldn't move my car because I was boxed in by other cars... My other camera had the 70-200 on, but it happened so fast I had no time to change. So I tried to make the most of it with the 500. I like your version Steve, it certainly improved the image! I'm trying to figure out how you did it, because I only know the basics of PS, and I'm not quite used to the lingo either, Dutch is my language. But I will get there! That's why I'm here :e3 I'm searching the web now for channel masks - whatever it means...:w3

[Steve Kaluski]

Carole, you intuition was correct, stick to the 500 and capture what you can, as you could have lost it all searching for the other lens/camera. To keep things simple, you could use Smart objects also and this would also allow you to keep exporting from the RAW file which is great.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Fabulous action here Carole. I like your crop - had to stare at it for a while but it's grown on me. Nice mood with the dust and insects and light.
Steve's repost has improved it nicely (as he usually does).

Feel free to ask more detail/info on anything mentioned when it comes to processing...we are here to help :s3:

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Carole,
the OP is already very god for my taste, even if there is room to improve in most images, for different eyes .But that is sometimes personal feeling.
Steve pushed it a bit , but i would not have gone that far , think for half way between OP and RP would work for me bets !!!

Like the action in the light situation , you captured .Think you handled the metering and exposing very good and get all the important stuff in the frame.
The dust and the insects are a nice bonus to fill the frame.

TFS Andreas