Cheetah passing by

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi folks ,
one of my rare close Cheetah sightings ..... seen many on all of my trips but basically all far or hidden :e3.
But also in this case ( taken in Etosha ) less than ideal and on the move , watched this female with its single cup for over an hour far on the plains in Etosha , finally the female decided to come my way .....
I was waiting for her , but could not see her due to landscape undulations and the very high dry grass , so i moved slowly up and down the track ......
All of a sudden the emerged from the high grass with her cub behind her , the cub passed my car in my back :e3 , she decided to walk slowly parallel to me ..... still too hectic for me to sort the situation out in terms of kit and exposure .
As the cam was set to expose here in the light high grass , so i got her in front of me ...... backlit , a exposure disaster followed .
Resulting in a very dark frame ........

So i spend a lot of time for a half way decent result to overcome the really dark shadows and almost solid blacks :eek3:.Tried even ACR with SO and exposure blending ....... the result wasn´t to bad to be honest , but as i am a pure Canonian and prefer to work with DPP i was working hard to get this , a lot of exposure blending involved and loads of layers .

Canon EOS 1D MK IV
EF 500 IS L
Window bracket

F 8 / Iso 500 : 1/800 sec

Processed with DPP 4 and PS CC , cropped for comp

Thanks for watching and commenting to my previous thread

Cheers Andreas

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Andreas!

I really like your composition here, and especially the Cheetah's neck stretched across the frame, her face glowing in the sun! You did a great job revealing detail in those darker parts like gums, eyes and nose. The whites on the muzzle a bit on the bright side but you got away with it, my Canonian Boetie:) Some might say the subject is perhaps too "red", I nearly did so myself but then remembered a golden afternoon in the Kalahari and a very similar looking cheetah I still have to process...

Blacks look ok to me, given the direction of the light and amount of shade. I guess you put a great deal of effort into this and it pays - thank you for explaining the circumstances, with my basic workflow I think I would not reach this performance. Thank you so much for sharing, I enjoyed viewing:cheers:

Warmest regards,

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Gabriela ,
this is as shot , WB daylight , Neutral tone curve

[Gabriela Plesea]

Boetie, do not understand - what is your thinking behind WB Daylight? Why not go Neutral instead?

Let's email tomorrow night, would you please send me the RAW in the meantime? Let's play:tinysmile_shy_t:

Thanks so much for the info, sleep well,

[Andreas Liedmann]

Gabriela there is no neutral WB :w3 in any " raw converter , as far as i know .

[Gabriela Plesea]

Sorry Andreas, I was talking about LR. Did not know you use DPP, Andre just told me now:S3:

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andreas - You did well to recover the detail here in both the darks and the highlights. If it were mine I would crop up a little more from the bottom to get rid of the bent grass along the bottom edge or you could clone it if you prefer. My best cheetah sightings have been in the Mara and Serengeti.

I think Gabriela is confusing WB and Picture Styles in the Raw converters. However, I still wonder why using the daylight WB setting rather than using the eye dropper to set the WB and adjusting from there if you prefer warmer or cooler?

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Morning Andreas and Rachel:)

Rachel, I am not familiar with the Canon RAW converter:) I was thinking LR and "Camera Profile" when I said Andreas should start with a Neutral image. This is probably "Picture Styles" in your Canon software?

Regarding WB, "Daylight" setting in LR warms up the image tremendously so I prefer to struggle a bit with the dropper tool...

Chat later, have a wonderful day:wave:

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gabriela , no need for being familiar with the canon converter ......
If you choose " neutral " ( what i did ) is the same in LR or DPP , you have this picture styles or camera profiles named the same in LR or DPP :t3.
The original picture style is indeed a tad warmer than the "fake" one in LR .
And the WB is a matter of taste , i kept the warmth as the image was taken late afternoon .I already reduced the oranges in DPP and reduced the reds further in PS ......

Thanks Rachel for your comment , much appreciated .

So i stick with it :wave:

Thanks again Andreas

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Andreas, cheetah sightings are rare and any clean shot is good for me. One has to be lucky and agree that Mara and Serengeti are good bets. I like the comp but agree with Rachel reg cropping a bit from below. You did well to recover the details.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Andreas -- You have done it extremely well to get details and i also liked the framing . I have never seen a Cheetah in person but from the images that i have seen this one looks a bit orange/reddish to me .

TFS !

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andreas, I assume you were trying to avoid blowing the whites of the chin, hence the result?

Everyone works in different ways, so I'm not going to add my thoughts re WB, etc. From the original to the OP I feel you have done well, one good thing with LR is you can selectively adjust the Black which I don't think you can do in DPP, but that's another avenue. Like the posture, HA and diagonal line within frame. OK it's shot with the MKIV, but I would have liked more SS here and you could have pushed it here.

TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thank you gentlemen for your thoughts / comments on this one ..... much appreciated :wave:

Steve - for what reason are you not commenting on WB , etc ? Me or others might learn ......
Regarding the blacks in DPP , yes there is not such blacks slider ...... but what does this "blacks slider " actually do in LR /ACR ? Do you know what the blacks slider calls " Blacks" , from range 0 - 10 ? - 20 ?

You are right about the SS ....... but as described in the intro i forgot to change the settings , i had higher SS when the cheetah was far away as the sunlit grass was way lighter than the cheetah being close and backlit :bg3:, a typical operator error :w3.

Hope you come back re WB etc

Cheers Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Steve - for what reason are you not commenting on WB , etc ? Me or others might learn ......

Only because most people here know my thoughts, however it also comes down to workflow and how you do things, but at the end of the day, does it look right? I always like to start on a level playing field, might be a 'geeky' thing, but at the end of the day if it looks right, then fine, irrespective of how you get there. Just one of my hang ups on 'detail' right or wrong, I just don't like Adobe managing 'my colour', therefore if it's wrong then there is only one answer :S3:.

The 'Black' adjustment is within the adjustments, not a slider. I'm sure ACR has it, but I don't use it, however the new version of LR6 does have some nice additions, however a lot of my initial workings are either pres-sets I have created for my own interpretation over time and or, things are done on auto pilot too - without thinking. The biggest issue is knowing when to use it, like dehaze.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Steve , need to talk to you .... "offline" if that is ok for you , might be tomorrow