Southern Tree Agama with prey

[Pieter de Waal]

101254

We have families of these and other lizards living in a wall behind the house. Spotted this one which had just caught an Armoured Ground Cricket one late afternoon. The male of the species has a very blue head.

EOS30D EF28-90 @ 62mm f29@1/60 iso200. Used the in camera flash, cropped and darkened BG more.

C&C allways welcome.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Pieter, very pleased to see the diversity of you images being posted, nice to see something different.

Now I'm viewing this on my laptop so things might be a little off however try:

- Move the left slider in Levels to say 6 or 8
- Drop the Exposure to say -0.10, Gamma -0.95
- Another round of sharpening
- Crop half the space above the head

If it works then the subject has more depth & pop, set against a darker BKG that just lifts your subject.

TFS
Steve

[Mark Wiseman]

Hi Pieter, great background and detail, good eye contact. It would be interesting to see the changes to the image Steve has mentioned, otherwise well done and TFS
:cheers::5.

[Robert Amoruso]

That is pretty cool looking but also scary thinking this is living in the wall of your house. :Whoa!:

I would try the following:

Highlight selection:

1) Channels palette.
2) Ctrl key and click the RGB channel. Photoshop will now create a feathered selection around highlight pixels in the image. Photoshop has selected pixels based on how bright they are. Pure white pixels are selected 100%. Pure black pixels are not selected and pixels falling in-between those two extremes are selected based on a percentage of how close they are to white.

Blending Mode Adjustment:

1) Go back to layer palette - you will see selection.
2) Create BG copy.
3) Create mask on the BG copy from the selection.
4) Selection is grayscale shaded.
5) Change blending mode to Multiply.
6) Adjust opacity.

Go to http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20434 to see my Image Contrast and Tonal Range Tweaks, Part 1.

Go to http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?p=161168 to see my Image Contrast and Tonal Range Tweaks, Part 2.

Look at blending modes in the first link and highlight selection in link 2 using method 2 (CTRL Key and double click on the RGB channels pallet will make same selection in current versions of PS).

[DanWalters]

Pretty amazing shot. The abdomen on the cricket looks like it is ready to burst!

[Harshad Barve]

Pretty amazing shot. The abdomen on the cricket looks like it is ready to burst!

Plus one here , excellent
TFS

[Pieter de Waal]

Thanks guys for the comments.

Robert I think I should clarify, it is not the back wall of the house but a retaining wall a couple of meters from the house.:e3

Thank you Steve and Robert for your advice, quite a lot to work through which I will do when I get back from work this afternoon. Thanks for taking the time, much appreciated.

[Steve Kaluski]

Cheers Robert, some good advice & interesting threads.

Steve

[Ofer Levy]

Excellent image! I see no problem with the exposure and sharpness. Maybe a bit off the top.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Ah ! Lovely action here . Love it as posted !

[Pieter de Waal]

Thanks for your comments Ofer and Rakesh, much appreciated.

Attached a repost with the suggestions, blending mode at 70 and additional round of sharpening.

101350

[Steve Kaluski]

:cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers:

Steve

[Stu Bowie]

Pieter, your repost is simply superb. You got pretty close without scaring the lizard away. His meal a real bonus. Very well captured.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Yup that last repost rocks, Pieter! Robert's tweaks have helped me a lot in growing my workflow toolset. :cheers:
These guys are so cool and the low angle works well...

[Pieter de Waal]

Thanks a stack Stuart, Morkel and Steve.

Morkel I have learnt so much here and the advice and assistance provided by you mods is fantastic. Thanks

[Rachel Hollander]

Pieter - The repost takes this image (which was already great) to a whole other level. Well captured and processed. Love the black bg, the contrast and detail.

TFS,
Rachel

[Ofer Levy]

I've opened the 2 versions in Photoshop and looked at them very closely. I still prefer the OP with the brighter presentation of both lizard and prey. I also feel you have cropped a bit too much off the top in the repost.
Just my 2 cents...:w3

[Pieter de Waal]

Thanks Rachel and Ofer, appreciate your comments.

Ofer thanks for taking the time and for your observations. The different opinions make one think about the image and that is what makes BPN such a great forum for learning. Looking at it again tend to agree I could have cropped less, but prefer the RP.

[Brendan Dozier]

Excellent behavior capture, Pieter, nicely exposed and composed. Great looking texture and patterns on lizard, black BG works well. Repost looks great, nicely done!

[Ishmeet Sahni]

A super image. The repost looks great.

[Steve Canuel]

Nice job on the repost. Quite the meal he has. Always interesting to see the details on the spines, horns, etc. that some animals eat :Whoa!:.