Tiger Haven !

[haseeb badar]

Hello everyone. Thank you for all your comments and suggestions to my previous post, as always much appreciated .

I am posting a Tiger image , taken very recently in a nearby tiger reserve's buffer area. Monsoon ( Rainy season in Indian Sub continent) is just over and you can see how green it gets. I have tried to reduce some greens as it was way to vibrant.

We were very lucky to sight this young female lying around a small pond, lucky because the forest is densely vegetated and one can hardly see any animal in such lush greenery unless it comes out in the open. Plenty of water and cool climate makes sighting a tiger even more difficult but it was a very fortunate day for us.

I will also post some portraits from this sighting but like last seasons ending trip where I tried to capture more habitat shots, so again this time I continued with the same frame of mind and went wide to capture the environment. One big glitch in this frame was the Tiger facing in the other direction while I provided more space in the area where the pond was , so I had to flip the tiger in the same direction facing the pond. I hope it has turned out just fine.

Dpp 4.10, PSCC 2019, WB, curves, flipped the tiger , did some healing and cloning around it , selective colour, cropped from top and slightly from the bottom, NR, sharpening.

Canon 1DX MK II, Canon 24-105mm f4 IS II, HH.

ss 1/1250, f/5.6, iso 5000.

Looking forward for all your comments and suggestions, be it of any nature.

Haseeb.

[John Mack]

Very nice scene overall. Like the placement of the tiger in the frame. The green and blue sky goes great together. The cloud is nice as well.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Looks super Haseeb, you could possibly lower the brightness at the base just a little, it might provide a good anchor if you see what I mean. Maybe just a slight crop off the top to where it says copyright?
Hey if I get something like that I'll be like my dog - with two tails!!

[Gabriela Plesea]

What beautiful scene, Haseeb - well seen and captured!

Love those trees and the pond, but especially the presence of the tiger. I like the composition too, vegetation looks good in terms of colour, so is the blue sky.

Positioning of the subject within the frame is perfect. But flipping one frame and then copying the tiger onto another shows a bit - there's a soft hallo around the subject, a little round patch. Were the two images the same size? And have you checked the brush settings/opacity?

Otherwise, no nits from me. Thank you so much for sharing, and I hope you have a great rest of the week:)

Kind regards,

[haseeb badar]

Thank you Gabriela, John and Jon, I really appreciate your comments and suggestions, as always much appreciated.

@Gabriela — i too feel its not clean finishing, should have properly refined it. I will check the opacity settings, size of the selection was same. I wanted to know what you guys think, the best pair of eyes to catch all the knits.

@ Jon: I am pretty sure you will get some fantastic opportunities on your trip even better than this.

[haseeb badar]

I have tried to refine the edges and area around the tiger, WDYT ?

[Steve Kaluski]

I like the overall setting Haseeb and the way the 'path' curves around to the left along the pond, tree vegetation and the Tiger's look back. The sky looks a bit pushed, with what appears to be halos around the dead trees on the left, with some 'fingers' of the branches in a pale blue, highlighted on the RHS tree at the top - will drop you a line. Here I might have gambled, dropped the SS to say 1/500 and gone to say f/9 and depending on the EV may have shot slightly darker to get a tad more Dynamic Range with a lower ISO and lifted it in PP, but hard to know unless you were there, but certainly SS & Aperture I feel needed to change.

TFS
Steve

[Gabriela Plesea]

I have tried to refine the edges and area around the tiger, WDYT ?

I think it's better, Haseeb:w3

[haseeb badar]

Thank you Steve and Gabriela. Your inputs have definitely helped to overcome the obvious shortcomings.

@ Steve -- Techs were as per the previous events, where this young tigress came close to our vehicle from inquisitiveness and gave us a mock charge with a thunderous roar. You can guess what the situation was at that time, and hence the techs, but still I don't feel it justifies anything, I should have got better techs, have that much experience over the years but the Tiger somehow always manages to create that effect on you.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Haseeb, a fine scene with so much to look at, the head turn and the environment makes this image.

[haseeb badar]

Thank you Doc, much appreciated.