Humble Impala

[Russell Johnson]

Managed to luck out with a shaft of light between the woodland one early morning in the Luangwa.

Techs:

5D + 500mm
1/400 @F4
ISO 400

PP

Basic lightroom adjusmtents, colour corrections, levels and some curves.

Was tempted to lower the exposure around the impala to help it pop

129241

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Russell - beautiful warm light and the low pov makes up for the impala being angled away from you, though a little bit more turned toward you would have been ideal. I would run some NR on fg and bg if it were mine.

TFS,
Rachel

[Brendon Cremer]

Hi Russell, really nice light on the one impala almost spotlight like, with nice rich colour, may be a tad over saturated but that just personal taste. For me the bigger issues are the Ram is slightly looking away from you so to get him to be the focal point he really needs to stand out with no distractions. The Female in the FG is one of those distractions, i hope you dont mind but below is a RP which is just my take on a possible improvement.

I cropped to a 16:9 ratio and then very quickly cloned out the female impala so cloning not done very well but you get the idea. Also added a round of NR on both the BG and FG. Also removed blue patch of sky above Impala Ram.

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[Nancy Bell]

Brendon's repost addressed some of my concerns and does put the spotlight on the impala ram. The dark, smooth bkgd is a great backdrop that obscures any competing details.

[Morkel Erasmus]

The light is exquisite Russell. I too wish the ram was giving you some more "love" and though I often like 2nd or 3rd OOF animals in the frame, the female here detracts from the image for me.
Did you capture any other images while the light shaft remained?
I did not pull it into PS to verify, but could some of the reds be clipped on the ram? Easy to pull back by adding some cyan in color balance without losing the feel of the light.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Russell, the light in this is t die for, gorgeous.

Sadly the composition isn't really working for me either. In an ideal world without the female would have been better, plus perhaps a move, if possible to the right, to get a better profile, if the light allowed you too. Nice definition and form within the body, plus the catchlight in the eye. As it stands, adding some NR and addressing some 'OOF clumps' would help, likewise the white area in the BKD. Nice image from the 5D.

Not sure if the reds are clipped though, looking in Curves it just falls short and is not sitting hard up on the edge, might want to check though Russell. :w3

TFS
Steve