Wild boar Sus scrofa UK

Wild boar were extinct here. Excapees from farms have been living in the forest of dean here for a few years now. We have exterminated all our apex predators here,so man is controlling the sprialing numbers. Sadly for many of us this cull is of concern,I shan't dwell,but it has made the boar very nervous as one might understand.
So since becoming utterly embroiled in wildlife image making I have been trying sporadically to catch up with some boar and maybe make a couple of images. Obviously they have a reputation and need treating with great respect. so we got up at 4AM and made our way to the dean hoping to maybe catch some fallow or maybe just maybe find a boar.

Find a boar we did,just one,so laid back she could have been a tame domestic pig. A little old lady maybe she once lived in captivity,I simply don't know details. Although our little island is somewhat crowded the lonely places appeal to us. So having joe public about was something of an eye opener,I watched folks walk dogs up to her,frankly thank god that lady was behind a fence to keep deer out. Watched as cars nearly smashed into each other.Folks driving too fast spent nearly an hour and a half slowing traffic as she quitely fed in a blind spot yards from the road.

Interesting ethical debate for me I'm not meant to impinge on my subject I wanted to chase here back a bit where she was safe,plus of course she is a big old piggy whom might not be too happy about that.

I had another photographer turn up,plonk a flash between me and boar go round to other side of boar and start shooting!! Is that normally how we treat each other, not a word just crash in stuff the other guy???. I had an incredibly special day with a little old lady whom was utterly relaxed, I'd have stopped for someone else to have a go.

Utterly bewildered !!!!!!!

Ok sorry slight derail but all very relevent no FC here just the mind of a guy that kept piggies for a few years trying to not get in her way not upset her and constantly moving back as she tried to eat all the acorns. Her tail never stopped wagging like a very happy dog,but I saw first hand just what happened when she got fed up,the power the speed she went at the dog with were jaw dropping. It's around but fog is thick and sun not yet over the trees. I struggled a bit as she was so dark techs wise,little experience with something like this big and very dark. so my techs are basically doing my best,with what light was available 1/160 f4 iso 5000. so I know this time I wanted more Ss and dof but felt I had nowhere to go,maybe a bit of motion blur on here head??

Image is not cropped processed in dpp4 a bit of NR gamma pic style fine detail slight adjust boost to lower quarter or so on cuvres sharp to 9 glabal colour tone notched to red colour sat up to one colours pulled back sat blue -3 green -2 yellow -1 orange -2 Canon 1div 300 f2.8is Oh and a lensmaster gimbal and induro hi hat tripod,one of those incredibly strng but tiny things,so I can work on the floor but not have to hold the lens up for hours, Basically a little treat to try and help my IQ improve,although some light might help more :bg3:

I hope this is ok for the theme, they do have tusks in the males,but i'm a bit unsure if they are intended for the theme,mods please change if needed

thanks for all the help and thought with my previous images

take care

stu

Hi Stu, well done on pushing the techs.

Love the low POV and the slight head turn, but the tree trunk is a bit unfortunate. Stu i'll leave it with Andreas re colour as we have had to decamp to the other house for two weeks as the builders are ripping apart London so using the laptop, it's now totally inhabitable, albeit we will need to go back in the next two weeks, but hopefully it will be finished by the first week of Jan!!! The colours look good but I might get some darker exposure at the foot and bring some shadows and blacks back in, plus you need to drop the Blue as Rachel would say :S3:. Like the fog, adds atmosphere.

TFS
Steve

Hello Stu,

I like your "escapee"! Lovely framing, nice pose from the subject, a pretty and colourful BG. I just wish the tree was positioned a little more towards one side of the frame. There's nice separation between subject and BG so not a big issue, thought I'd mention it though.

In terms of techs I guess you did your very best under the circumstances. The light was obviously poor. I am not sure of your camera's capabilities in terms of ISO, I leave that to the Canon Masters. Don't mind the boar's body being OOF as long as the face is in, and I agree with you at 1/160s it most likely suffers from a bit of motion blur. You could perhaps try to extract more detail - I did a curve adjustment in PSCC and applied more sharpening - what do you think?

Really happy to see you posting again and delighted to learn that you are having fun out there. I also enjoyed reading the story behind the image, thank you. Sorry about the incident with the other photographer, how rude of him to pitch between you and your subject. Maybe you should have gone around too and placed yourself in-between his flash and the subject...Not only you would have taught him a lesson, you might have gained a different angle with no tree behind the boar:w3

Hope you have a wonderful week-end dear Stu:wave:

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Originally Posted by Steve Kaluski

Hi Stu, well done on pushing the techs.

Love the low POV and the slight head turn, but the tree trunk is a bit unfortunate. Stu i'll leave it with Andreas re colour as we have had to decamp to the other house for two weeks as the builders are ripping apart London so using the laptop, it's now totally inhabitable, albeit we will need to go back in the next two weeks, but hopefully it will be finished by the first week of Jan!!! The colours look good but I might get some darker exposure at the foot and bring some shadows and blacks back in, plus you need to drop the Blue as Rachel would say :S3:. Like the fog, adds atmosphere.

TFS
Steve

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I was at 5000 or 6400 iso all day Steve either the shade of trees or just gloomy tried my best but for sure inexperience showed with this big very dark subject,it was lovely though bar the madness of us humans.

Steve on the blues I did pull back to -3 are you saying you always go further. Steve a while back you noted puling the blues back,I felt at the time because of the warm light in the image, but I feel now I might be missing something, could you clarify a tiny bit for me please.

Understood,I think on the blacks and shadows image looks slightly washed out is that right this will add more depth??

take care

stu

Stu, keep at 6400 you'll be fine and you are really finding your way which is really cool.

Regarding the Blue, Andreas is far better equipped because he uses DPP, but I'm hedging my bets -3 is around 30%, however if you are happy then fine, I just think the Boar looks a bit blue and reducing the colour helps, however you are 'Globally' reducing this which will affect everything and that may not be the correct adjustment.

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Understood,I think on the blacks and shadows image looks slightly washed out is that right this will add more depth??

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Perhaps not the depth, but more that the subject appears richer with more 'form/shape'.

Hey Stu great to see a Euro wild boar .....
I like the head turn and the flying tail and you have a nice low POV .
The tree stump is a bit unfortunate ...but hey the trees are there :w3. I do like overall foggy feeling and colors do look ok to me , apart from the blues which i would definitely reduce . ( blue and cyan ) . I think you drop the temp more to get a " colder look "
The blacks could stand a bit more depth and you still retain the foggy feeling . There is a gap on the LHS of the histogram that could be filled , even in DPP :bg3:

You have come a long way and it is great to see your progress ...TFS Andreas

Stu ... regarding the blues Steve is on the right track . if the blues appear that intense like here you need to drop them to at least - 7 or even 9 . if you do so you loose some tonal depth ....you have to overcome that by adding a bit more tone via gamma . If you do use the HSL in DPP too heavy you have tonal shifts ....well nobody is perfect :w3 not even DPP :bg3:. In combo with PS no problem , but as a standalone software a bit buggy .

Cheers Andreas

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Originally Posted by Gabriela Plesea

Hello Stu,

I like your "escapee"! Lovely framing, nice pose from the subject, a pretty and colourful BG. I just wish the tree was positioned a little more towards one side of the frame. There's nice separation between subject and BG so not a big issue, thought I'd mention it though.

In terms of techs I guess you did your very best under the circumstances. The light was obviously poor. I am not sure of your camera's capabilities in terms of ISO, I leave that to the Canon Masters. Don't mind the boar's body being OOF as long as the face is in, and I agree with you at 1/160s it most likely suffers from a bit of motion blur. You could perhaps try to extract more detail - I did a curve adjustment in PSCC and applied more sharpening - what do you think?

Really happy to see you posting again and delighted to learn that you are having fun out there. I also enjoyed reading the story behind the image, thank you. Sorry about the incident with the other photographer, how rude of him to pitch between you and your subject. Maybe you should have gone around too and placed yourself in-between his flash and the subject...Not only you would have taught him a lesson, you might have gained a different angle with no tree behind the boar:w3

Hope you have a wonderful week-end dear Stu:wave:

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Hiya Gabriela,seems like you are as busy as I am if not worse,hey ho it's lovely to have a brief chat,thanks for the reply:S3: yes I love what you have done it works !! The selective sharpening is cool but it's what the curves have added that is of greater interest,this is what Steve touched on I think
Tree I should have nailed at shutter press,but maybe there was a reason for it being central, there are some signs or something on the road,I might have been concentrating on them,not making excuses i am unsure,but I know I was trying to avoid man made things in many of the early frames.

Ahh mate I could have made a point, but folks like that are just a waste of my planet's oxygen,they are never going to be worth any form of effort. I'd had a fabulous time and have a morass of frames to sort, he wasn't going to ruin our day....... more I mentioned it out of the disbelief that I felt at the time. You guys will have way more experience to draw on of etiquette shown by togs to their own and I was curious as to how folks might feel. It seemed profoundly rude to me,but maybe that's what folks do????

Gabby I'm still **** bent on this and still living for it just work is consuming all my time as with your good self sadly,hence the low post rate which is hard,I have much I want to share and learn from. Gabriela,i'm pretty much maxed on iso,for me at this time(5000/6400 ),maybe when I have more processing power I might be able to squeeze a bit more,butI don't think I have the skills yet to go much further with only dpp for NR.

You have the best weekend too mate,lovely to hear from you !!

stu

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Originally Posted by Andreas Liedmann

Stu ... regarding the blues Steve is on the right track . if the blues appear that intense like here you need to drop them to at least - 7 or even 9 . if you do so you loose some tonal depth ....you have to overcome that by adding a bit more tone via gamma . If you do use the HSL in DPP too heavy you have tonal shifts ....well nobody is perfect :w3 not even DPP :bg3:. In combo with PS no problem , but as a standalone software a bit buggy .

Cheers Andreas

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Hello Buddy are you good mate:S3: ?

Andreas thanks for both posts especially the second it helps me:cheers: !!!!! I need to understand more Andreas I shall read on blues I feel I don't know enough. Andreas I'll come back tomorrow see if I can improve on this . I'll play with the gamma a bit more aswell too see if I can improve the blacks ,I think I can mate cheers for this. I felt it washed out at the time but as you say the fog is so atmospheric one doesn't want to loose that

Andreas if i'm getting better that's your fault:bg3: and others,thanks for all the help.

I just struggled really buddy she is so big and so dark to get SS higher. Andreas a very quick question she is a dark subject where can I push iso to while I only have DPP with my mark iv for an animal like this
take care

stu

I like the low perspective, and great that you managed to capture a good head turn. Before scrolling down, I felt the Boar seemed a touch 'washed' out, so I do like what Gabby has done to the image.

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Originally Posted by Stu Bowie

I like the low perspective, and great that you managed to capture a good head turn. Before scrolling down, I felt the Boar seemed a touch 'washed' out, so I do like what Gabby has done to the image.

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I felt it while processing Stu .,i've noted I produce this washed out look occassionally i'm going to have another go shortly I feel the guys have taught me something here bless 'em all

thanks for the reply Stu

erm me

Hi Stu - Great to see another species and glad you got to spend some time with her even if it was rather hectic. The critique is well covered above so I won't repeat it but it is really nice to see the progress you have made and how you continue to try to improve.

TFS,
Rachel

I like the pose and the POV here Stu - although hard for me to really 'like' wild pigs as they are feral pests in Australia that have caused massive environmental damage. As for your shot, I don't have anything to add to the critiques. I think Gabriela's repost looks better but does it really reflect the foggy situation? Less sure on that. Your original did look a bit thin and flat until I realised is was foggy. Thanks for sharing and better luck with feral photographers next time.

Stu I like the image it really is a fine site! Using the 300mm I presume you were not very far away from the boar.
As mentioned the image has a slightly washed out look, I am not sure how foggy it was. As soon as you get Photoshop you will soon find out how you could optimise the boar and surroundings as separate entities.

Guys sorry so slow and also so brief Glenn Jon and (big thanks too kind) Rachel:wave: cheers for the replies sorry my reply will really be centered around the image it's just time is all ,but i'll try to post more and the other points can be picked up.
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To the image I can't match Gabriela's art,but slowly I know I want to use this tool or that I don't yet have. For now tightened up the gamma pulled back blues ( Steve said it's for Rachel ,but they are both right:bg3:) It's really fine getting this tonality right with that misty look so here's by best attempt so far. I'm still not sure but I've learnt here thankyyou guys
Again please forgive the slow reply and my brevity

hope you all had a fabulous weekend.

take care

Stu