Comin' At Ya!

[Edward Arthur]

I usually post in ETL but thought I'd send this one here.

Wondering if it's better to get a rhino in profile (I have plenty of those) or maybe sometimes it works for a more straight-on shot. In this one, I like the grass dangling from the big mouth and the wrinkles on the chest.

146746

Canon 6D
Zeiss 80-200mm @200 (I think)
1/500 ISO 400 f/5.6
HH and MF
Slight crop LHS and RHS

Lumo masks for lights/midtones, smart sharpening in PS CC

I have a couple issues with this shot but I'd prefer to read what others may think.

C&C welcomed as always :)

[BenBotha]

I have 3 issues,

1. Crop, legs are all cut off. Portrait format would be better
2. On my screen, laptop, not optimally sharp.
3. Contrast could be increased

Ben

[gail bisson]

Always nice to get a rhino shot.
I wish the legs were not cut off- really hurts the image unfortunately. I would go for a tight head shot if the IQ and sharpness can handle it.
The light was not your friend either, creating shadows on the side.
Any more to show us?
gail

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Ed - the processing is coming along but like the others the cut off legs is a real problem with the image. You either needed to shoot wider which you could have given that you were at the max zoom of the lens or switch to a vertical/portrait format as suggested above. I also would give the rhino a boost through a curves layer. You can bring out some more detail and texture in the hide. Finally, I would drop the reds in the grasses. It would be great if you would post at 1200 px horizontally. It makes it easier to view and critique. For vertical images the max is 900 px on the vertical side.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Ed , i agree always good to see healthy looking rhino .
Comp not ideal with legs cut off as presented .
Looks like your FP point was not on the head ? For this the snout/horn has to be in focus too.
It looks like you balanced the tones a bit too much for my taste , has somewhat an HDR character .
By using the lumo masks you destroyed the detail in the mid tones , a solution could be blurring the mask on the layer , but watch for halos caused by the blurring. 10 - 20 px radius works best in general . You could also use Surface Blur with the setting 15 px radius and 40 levels threshold, you will no halos then . But surface blur is heavy on computer ram .

Hope this helps , TFS Andreas

[Edward Arthur]

Thanks for your comments, everyone. You guys are the best!

Along with everything else, I'm still trying to figure out how to best size my pics for upload here.

Rachel, you have an eye for color I can never hope to achieve. Guess I'll have to be lazy/scientific and use the ColorPic thingy to figure it out going forward. :)

Personally, I don't mind shadows. Part of the gift of light. But I understand the cut-off legs may be a big minus. What bothers me even more is the purple fringing along the rhino's belly that I couldn't remove. That's what drove me to distraction in pp and maybe took me in the wrong direction. :(

[Morkel Erasmus]

I can't add more than what the others said, Edward.
Does your 80-200mm also only work with manual focusing?
The fringing you mention could be a lens chromatics abberation issue, correctable in RAW conversion...