Back-lit Hyena

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

1/1000
f/5.6
ISO 800
5D III
500mm
PP in DPP and PS CS5 and Nik Detail extractor.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sanjeev, I like the setting and the warm colours and backlit feel, but personally I might crop some off the LHS, but your call. Overall I sense the colours a bit 'light' I might have expected them to be a tad richer in both colour and tone, just personal preference again. The face IMHO looks flat, with an almost even light, I might have expected some more shadow/depth being backlit, this might be through DE? The blown HL's are a wee bit annoying, but nothing you could have done based on the scene/setting and we have all been there.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Sanjeev - Steve has perfectly summed up my thoughts as well. With backlighting I don't usually go for a lot of detail if I am emphasizing the rim light so I am curious about the choice to use DE here?

TFS,
Rachel

[Jonathan Ashton]

Wow I like that shot, it stands out for me. I think some of the brightest highlights are a little bright but I really like the head. The image really gives me the opportunity to have a good look at the hyaena, I know that sounds a bit daft but I do keep looking and looking again.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thanks Steve, Rachel & Jon. I liked the expression on the hyenas face with those frown lines and eye contact. Used DE to see how much detail one can recover (with all the DR bashing of canon sensors) so I tried to recover details by lifting the shadowed part. Not bad I thought! Agree on the crop suggestions and it may be a bit too light on face.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Sanjeev,

A bit of a difficult one and I have been studying this image for some time, wondering what I would have done different if it were mine. I absolutely love the pose here and especially the look the hyena has given you- nice eye contact, the golden BG works very well for me, and I can see you have done some nice work to bring out detail, especially on the face of the subject. I wonder what would happen if you allowed this hyena to remain "backlit", by that I mean not try to lighten the body and bring detail everywhere, but instead just working on the face where (to me, at least) it matters most? Glistening dark eyes, whitish fur here and there on the sides of the face, a few white hairs around the muzzle, etc? Just a thought and of course I have not tried on this image this which I am suggesting, I just hope you see the potential here to experiment more:w3

Thank you for sharing Sanjeev, always a pleasure to view your images and I thank you so much for your kind comments and suggestions on mine-much appreciated!

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Sanjeev i agree with you about the expression on the face it looks like the hyaena is giving you a ":w3" , very nice !!

I agree with above said about being bit thin in color and tones and would expect a darker subject , but still retaining some nice detail in the fur . Not much to do with the complete blown HL , that happens :S3:.

With some rework a different image will be created , if you wish .

TFS Andreas