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Thread: Black-tailed Prairie Dog

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    Default Black-tailed Prairie Dog

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    What attracted me to this Prairie Dog was the nice, even volcano-shape of the mound and how his rump and tail are so obvious when his head is low, possibly believing he is safe while viewing whatever has caught his interest. I can sit for hours watching/photographing these characters. Early morning lighting. I determined this particular crop based on the shape of the mound.

    Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon 400 f4 DO IS, 1/1000, f6.3, exp. comp. +1/3, ISO 400.

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Hi Nancy, a couple of questions firstly:
    - Is this a crop and if so, small or large?
    - What was the Temperature of the image
    - If you are shooting JPEG, do you have any 'picture styles' set?
    - Did you apply any Saturation to the image, if so, was it 'Global' (everything) or did you adjust certain colours like red or yellow?
    - Have you applied any Noise reduction, if so where?

    Thanks
    Steve
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    Steve,
    - mostly full-size image, cropped only some off bottom
    - temp = 6200
    - RAW
    - no saturation applied
    - I usually apply NR to the bkgd only, never to the animal. Not sure if I remembered to do my usual NR

    When I convert to JPEG, then to web size, it seems my images become very small and detail greatly lost. Not sure what I am doing wrong. JPEG looks O.K., then when I reduce image size to 1024 or 800, which ever is necessary, the image gets so small. I increase to 100% but still very small with detail lost.

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Nancy - It's a cute pose on top of the mound with the tail up. I think I've only seen these at the zoo but the reds in particular seem too strong, probably the yellows too as the overall image feels a little orange. The ones I've seen have generally been a light brown, almost tan color. It may come down to your WB though. Is 6200 as shot or a custom WB applied in pp? Do you keep your camera set on AWB or one of the other settings? I envy the variety of wildlife you have relatively nearby.

    TFS,
    Rachel

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    Rachel,
    - 6200 as shot
    - usually use "cloudy" setting in camera

    These p. dogs were especially beautiful in color. This could be a bit bright, but not outrageously. I feel very lucky to have so much wildlife around!

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    Nancy, I agree with Rachel re. the color. I looked @ some of my p.dog images and they are light brown to tan with a WB @ 5500K. That said, there could be a color variation between MT. & CO. p.dogs. I like the pose. Interesting that you used 400mm. I am unable to get that close to them.
    Andrew

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Hi Nancy, firstly change your WB setting to Auto, this should take out a lot of the heavy saturation the has been applied using 'Cloudy' and give it a more 'faithful' look or start to your image. Unless there is a particular reason, i.e. your style of photography leans towards that direction, keep your camera to AUTO. If you are unhappy when you import the image you can, as I say, change it in RAW, then make fine adjustments with the Temp slider, rarely do you need to touch the Tint, unless I have found it relates to 'portraits' of people & skin tones.

    By reducing the saturation, hopefully a bit more detail will start to come through too, as it can choke the image at times in key areas. With the kit & settings you should have a lot more clarity & detail within the image, especially in the FG, hence my question about NR. Have a read of my sticky 'saving for web' in the opening page of Wildlife and follow this, except remember the KB size has gone from 200 to 250 when you optimise. If you make this two changes and RP, then I think we would have a better platform to discuss the image on.

    cheers
    Steve
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Hi Nancy, I agree with Steve on the AWB. There was one point a few years ago that I was using "cloudy" with some frequency due to someone suggesting it but it added some saturation particularly in the reds and yellows towards which Canon already skews. The color of my images improved when I switched back to AWB and made whatever minor tweaks to WB in pp.

    Rachel

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    Thanks so much for the advice on "cloudy" to AWB. I can't remember exactly why I chose "cloudy".
    Andrew, I can only get close to prairie dogs that are habituated to people. In Ft. Collins, CO, there are several dog towns that are surrounded by parking lots, stores and bike paths.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nancy Bell View Post
    Andrew, I can only get close to prairie dogs that are habituated to people. In Ft. Collins, CO, there are several dog towns that are surrounded by parking lots, stores and bike paths.
    That's cool. I have used my car as a blind for up to 90 minutes in order to get images of P.dogs.
    Andrew

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    That is cute and I like the lines created by the point of the mound and the shape of the prairie dog. My only suggestion would be to take some from the right to put him more off center

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    BPN Member Morkel Erasmus's Avatar
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    Some good feedback already given here on in-camera choices, Nancy.
    When I shot Canon I was happy using Auto WB as the default Canon WB is nice and warm, especially compared to Nikon.
    I dig the pose here!

    If you are struggling with detail retention in JPG conversion I would have a look at your sharpening workflow too...
    Morkel Erasmus

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