Buffalo Herd at the River

[Rachel Hollander]

Time to start us off on October's Theme of Toned Images. It was hard to do justice to the massive herds of buffalo seen in South Luangwa National Park. This particular herd was well over 500 members. Here they came to the river to drink in the late morning. We were on the opposite side of the river on top of the steep bank. I purposely went a bit brighter and less contrast in the conversion here. The scene was a bit chaotic with buffalo coming and going, kicked up dust and pukus in the bg.

Canon 7D2
100-400 II @ 400mm
1/500
f8
ISO 400
HH from safari vehicle, slight crop for comp, converted in NIK Silver Efex, levels, curves, sharpened in PSCC.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

A very nice conversion Rachel to start of the theme. I like the light tones on top & good detail in the buffs below with the dust & all. Nice composition. TFS.

[Glenn Pure]

What a fabulous experience this must have been, Rachel. Looks like you did a good job with your focus plane and DOF in this shot. I'm less sure about the choice of composition. I'd be inclined to a pano crop and take out the top portion of the frame somewhere around the second bench or just above. I feel a different treatment of the tones would work better for me although I note your comments about the choice you made here. Overall, it is a little too high key for me but that's purely a subjective and personal view. I've enjoyed looking at this frame and getting a feel for the experience you had here so thank you for sharing it.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, I like the idea of what's been captured, as there is a lot going on within the capture adding more interest to the viewer, but for me it just looks like it's been over exposed by +1, or hi key and I'm struggling to see any 'toning' of the image??? Surely 'toning' an image brings in some colour to the capture? Going a bit more 'gritty' and getting more tonal range back so you have more from white to black creates depth to the image, although more needs to be done to the top LHC. I've use black and three main Pantone colours to create the 'Toning' in this Quad tone, but if your using SilverEfex then you can add a colour, but you need to see it IMHO :S3:.

At there is a lot to look at, especially with subjects moving the going straight to ISO800 for some more SS would have be good I feel, also how far are you away from the subjects, check in PS?

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Sanjeev, Glenn and Steve. Steve - you can no longer get distance to subject in PS for any camera other than I believe 1Dx2 (at least it was reported that you could still get it with 1Dx2 a few months ago when discussed in the forum). I was at least 100 yards from the subjects. As I said in the intro I had purposely gone for the high key look with it brighter and less contrast. I realize it won't be to everyone's liking but your version wasn't what my vision was for the image. I wanted to produce something that was a bit different and perhaps more artsy. Thanks for the repost though.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

I was at least 100 yards from the subjects.

If that is about right then I feel your wasting DoF, you wanted to be say f/6.3, even f/5.6.


As I said in the intro I had purposely gone for the high key look with it brighter and less contrast.

OK, but where is the toning coming through, it just look like a B/W :S3: ????

[Rachel Hollander]

Steve - it has a very slight coffee toning but we have always accepted both B&W and Toned images for the theme. I think I accidentally dropped B&W from the theme title when I posted the theme.

Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Rachel this is a gorgeous buff gathering !!!!
I like the layers of animals from FG to BG ..fading numbers from front to back giving the illusion of more depth in the frame.
Well if you want to create a high key frame ..then you have created one ,and i think it conveys quite well a hot african sunlit day around noon .
Conversion looks good ... but agree if this is toned ..you need color .
Steve´s RP has a more classical B&W feeling to it and i like that on too ...just two different images .

TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andreas. Coffee toning only at 10% opacity from what I remember so we can just call it a high key b&w I guess.

Steve - I just looked at a dof calculator and there's about a 4.5 meter difference in dof from f8 to f5.6 at the settings used and 100 yards. I have to look at the image in DPP to see where my FP was. I processed this one a while ago.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dearest Rachel,

I like the " chaos" here as well as "action" in the background. Almost looks as if the buffalo is chasing the puku (was he?)

I have always been a great fan of toned images but I admit I have not processed many, after a few unsuccessful ones I kind of gave up. I do like both your version and Steve's. Cannot really make up my mind which one works better as they are worlds apart. I have not noticed the subtle coffee toning in the OP at first but I do now, me thinking it would be nice if you made it a bit more evident?

Well composed and I like the ebb and flow of animals, lots to look at.

Rachel, time for me to try a conversion of my own, give me a day or two:w3 And thank you so much for sharing, as always a pleasure to view.

Warmest regards,