lion, b&w

[peter delaney]

1/100 f4 iso 5000

This male was an awesome specimen, he was the head of the pride that startled the black rhino that charged me, and on this particular evening his pride played tag with a jackal puppy for an hour, the puppy lived to tell the tale.....

[Hilary Hann]

A handsome, battle scarred boy that's for sure. Like the cropping choice and has made a good, strong b&w.

[Alfred Forns]

Great looking face Peter !!! Mike work a on the contrast .. the mouth area is a little light and the ear sort of block .. I'm sure the light was not kind to you You sure know how to pick the subjects for the b&w conversions !!! Like it a lot !!!

[Harshad Barve]

awesome face , looks like big warrior , excellent image
TFS

[Ken Watkins]

Peter,

I am usually not a fan of B &W conversions, but this is really nice, and with the fine tuning suggested by Al will be even better.

I must try some one day.

[Marc Mol]

Very well done Peter, increasing the blacks in selective areas would improve further I feel.
TFS


1/100 f4 iso 5000

What DSLR Peter?


I must try some one day.
Go on Ken,.......... let your hair down a little!! :D:p

[Morkel Erasmus]

the techs here are awesome - assuming you shot with a long lens, 1/100 on ISO 5000 :)

lovely conversion, agree with Al's suggestions, nice and sharp all round and a lovely specimen

[Steve Kaluski]

Certainly a handsome and fine looking beast Peter.

B/W works so well with a character like this, a real King. Can I ask, when you converted to sRGB was it from an RGB file or a Greyscale file? The reason I ask is that sometimes an RGB file can have a slight 'blue' feel, be good to know. Al knows better that I do, but I would suggest trying a mask with exposure on the white areas around the mouth, but highlight/shadow for the nose & ear to get some more detail out of the image.

TFS
Steve ;)

[Stephen Earle]

Lots of character shown here Peter. I like the alert look of this old indoena.

[peter delaney]

Mr Kaluski.... well spotted..I actually added a blue toner to the final image, so nothing to do with srgb to rbg... I am just experimenting with either adding a brown or blue toner to my B&w as I find in some cases that it increases the depth to the image...

Al agree about the block/black ear , agree it could be a lighter but he has some really bad ticks that looked a bit unsightly, I try with most of my b&w to have as much of a tonal range/zone thru the image , but the mouth is bit too light so will fix that ... so thanks for your observations...

Morkel, Marc ....sorry forgot to put camera equipment up, D3 200-400mm really finds the VR comes in to its own when I need it most in low light...I just find going much above 5000 the IQ really suffers...

Ken, Glad that some of my B&W are breaking your resistance down slowly....
check out www.nickbrandt.com he takes it(b&w) to another level although some may not agree with some his PP work... I am big fan , a real work of art, a lot of thought ,creativity, and hard work has been put in to his books...

[Steve Kaluski]

Mr Kaluski.... well spotted.. A bit formal Mr Delaney. ;)

Totally agree and good to experiment, are you using Silverpro?

kind regards
Mr Kaluski

[Morkel Erasmus]

Peter - thanks for the info...

Nick Brandt's stuff is awesome, big inspiration for me too...
mind sharing which action you use to add the toner afterwards?

[peter delaney]

hi steve:) , yes silver efex pro, I love it, I know the purists dont agree about using this kind of sofware , but it works for me , my PP must be kept as simplistic as possible or it becomes too much of a chore... Silver efex does all the hard work and I get to concentrate on being as creative as possible with my work.

Morkel, it was just a straight forward (after I had done all my PP work in LR3 & silver efex) using the preset drop down menu in toning and playing about with strenghts...I am not a huge fan of sepia or a real hard blue toner , I just want a subtle effect so not to overpower the image...

have to say what a very clever marketing ploy by nick brandt with his titles of his books.... very clever!!

I am really looking forward when Ken posts his first B&W .....:):):):)

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Peter...guessed it was in Silver FX but wanted to make sure. I also love that software and I have the same view on PP :)

Ken - we're all waiting with baited breaths...

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Love this wonderful face and the B&W gives it another dimension and feeling. Excellent detail and the eye contact puts iot over for me. Beautiful work !!!

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Peter :D, as I have said before and will continue to say, the less time spent in PP the better. For me there are two camps, Photography and the world of Harry Potter Photographic magician, we have to make that decision where we want to be. If the technique suits and conveys the message without distorting or enhancing something that was not there in the original image, then great. I really like the treatment here, plus it has been done in a sympathetic and skillful way. I think that just because a programme can do 100 things in a click of a button we need to use all 100. No, we have to be selective and use the right tool, as you have illustrated here. :cheers:

[Sabyasachi Patra]

A fine image Peter! The image captures the character of the lion. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Peter Try some of the pre sets for toning I like the selenium for lots of the images !!! LR has a bunch of them and even more are commercially available !!!

... btw I'm fine with SilverPro or any other software .. what counts is the final result !! You seem to be doing well with conversion and one of the keys is picking the right image which you do well !!

[Rachel Hollander]

Peter - really like this. The conversion works well. Interesting discussion about PP software too.

TFS,
Rachel

[Ken Watkins]

o
Ken - we're all waiting with baited breaths...


Please do not hold your breath:D