Kruger Elephant in HDR

[Morkel Erasmus]

I am playing around as much as I can with HDR these days. This shot was taken at the beginning of May 2009 in the Kruger National Park. The light was getting harsh and we were on our way out of the park to friends' wedding which was held in the area.

I created 3 different exposures from 1 RAW image, converted to HDR in Photomatix, brought back in PS and used masking to combine with the original 3 exposures for maximum effect. I also blurred the BG slightly since this was at my lens' shortest focal length and the background wasn't turned into sweet bokeh.

Your opinions will be greatly appreciated! This won't be everyone's cup of tea but I quite like how it came out, especially how it's enhanced every crease in the Ellie's skin.

Techs:
Canon 1000D with 100-400 L IS USM
f4.5 @ ISO 400

[Connie Mier]

I really like the added texture effect on the elephant's skin. But, a distracting weird looking leaf in the front left.

[Harshad Barve]

this seems to be big fellow Morkel
Experts will commnet on PS but I like it lot
Harshad

[Kiran Khanzode]

I usually don't hide my feelings, he looks like a 900 year old wrinkled elephant, Morkel ! :-). He has aged well :-).

[Stu Bowie]

You certainly have brought out the detail in this Mork. Well timed to capture him feeding, and wish his eye was more open.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks guys! I know it's not the best comp - was merely trying the new PP work on this fellow.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Good one Morkel, you PP sure has made the sujects detail dynamic. something different. I like it.

[David Fletcher]

Bravo for your PP work Morkel! Sure brought out the details. Nice one. :)

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the kudos Kiran & Dave!

[Billy Steenkamp]

Now this is something else, 10/10 for trying and improvising Morkel ;):)

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Billy - and welcome to BPN :)

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Morkel,
What was the shutter speed?

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Fabs Forns]

Morkel, an Eli in HDR, now I have seen everything :)

Great idea, and it looks pretty good to me. I have tried this on birds with no results. I may try and blur the surroundings a bit, since the HDR brought too much detail to it.

[Steve Canuel]

The elephant took the treatment quite nicely IMO. Not sure exactly what to try but maybe a little work on the BG would ease the difference between the subject and BG.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks so much for the comments Steve, Sabya, Fabs.

Sabyasachi - shutter speed on the original shot was 1/2000

will work on the BG over the weekend some more.

[Kobus Tollig]

Great job bud. Really like the skin.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Kobus - thanks bud.

thanks Peter. I agree, real bracketing will work better but animals rarely hold exactly the same pose for so many consecutive seconds, which will make effective blending a problem. If the BG was cleaner it could work if you use the original BG, but layer the elephant and make 3 exposures of just the elephant, HDR that so that you can get that detail, and then layer it back over the original post with the unedited BG.

any thoughts on this?

[Morkel Erasmus]

Peter - I don't have an external flash yet :)
hopefully soon, but I don't think my built-in will reach this fellow...

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Morkel,
If you set the three values for bracketing and use a burst, then I am sure you can get it. Ofcourse, you have to choose a moment when the elephant is still. As an aside, elephants are remarkably still and silent if they have decided to charge. :D

I have a few questions for you and others.

Why did you select f4.5 and 1/2000th? Why not a narrow aperture?

Only a small patch of sky is seen in the frame. Is this an ideal image for HDR? If it is just the bright patch on the top right that you wanted to tone down, then you can selectively do that in photoshop or lightroom.

I am not an expert in African elephants. Ofcourse, I have spent some time with elephants in India and documented some unique behaviour. I have never seen such texture. It looks like a wood carving.

It seems I am the lone voice questioning this. However, this is an honest question and it may be taken in the right spirit.

Regads,
Sabyasachi

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Sabyasachi.

As far as I can recall, I think it was on my wife's side of the car and she may have actually taken the photo. I set the aperture narrow to try and blur as much of the BG as possible. My 1000D has a burst speed of 1.5fps in RAW which is not adequate for my needs - I'll have to upgrade sometime.

Composition-wise it may not be the ideal shot for an animal HDR, but I actually just worked with it and wanted to see what results I could get using that method. I like the effect - as an impact-shot. For realism, I'll probably due normal exposure blending or just edit using S-curves etc.

I am including the 0-exposure original out-of-camera image for your comparison. You'll see all the textures are there, just less pronounced.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Morkel,
I agree with you. It didn't strike me that you were using 1000D. Certainly exposure bracketing for elephants for the purpose of HDR would be out of question. I can see the texture of the trunk muscles is there. The HDR just blew the texture out of proportion, especially in the head and ears. I wish you had used a narrow aperture. I would love to see a few more of this fellow next time. Since you are based in South Africa, may be you can find this fellow again. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Sabya - I might not get this exact fellow again, but am sure to see some more ellies on my trip to Kruger next weekend. I knew this kind of shot would be a personal thing. Some will like it, some won't. I have many shots of elephants as is but wanted to try something different.

if you say 'narrow aperture' do you mean smaller than f4.5 used? my lens can't go lower than that. if you meant narrow as in opening of light - going to f11 or so would have included too much of the environment as pin sharp?

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Morkel,
Narrow in the sense, narrow lens opening ie. f8, f11 etc. That would help in detailing the texture better.

Good luck with the elephants. Who knows you will get the same one again.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Morkel Erasmus]

oh okay. thanks! If I could choose I would want a bigger bull with humongous tusks in a wide open setting :)

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Peter, will check it out!

[Roger Clark]

Morkel,
I would like to jump in and ask if you really need to make an HDR out of one raw file. There are no extreme highlights or shadows that you want to bring out, so I don't see what you've gained by converting 3 times and making an HDR. The dynamic range and signal to noise ratio really will not be any different. I would bet that you can create the same final image with one raw conversion. (This might be a good example to post to the digital photography workflow forum so others who don't frequent the wildlife forum might see it.)

Roger

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Roger - like I actually said before, I only tried this to get familiar with the techniques and software for when I'm in that position again. I liked the outcome of the image, and decided to post and see what people thought of it.

I'm sure you could actually achieve this result with one image, and I'll play around some more with it to see if there really will be actual noticeable differences.

[Roger Clark]

I think the HDR is a little too much processing for my tastes. I like the potential of the original you posted. I think somewhere between these two would be optimum.

Roger