Another one taken in August 2012 in the Timbavati Game Reserve, South Africa, of the then 8 month old male leopard cub.
Canon 5D3
70-200 II @ 200mm
1/640
f3.5
ISO 800
EC +1.0
HH from safari vehicle, cropped for comp (slightly on all sides except rhs), luminosity mask, bg exp, levels, curves, selective color adjustments, sharpened in CS6.
Hi Rachel very nice pose of the "little" one Love the look in the eyes, your details and sharpness. Spot on as usual. But there is one little thing disturbing me. The triangle above the right branch RHS. The fur (top of the neck behind the branch) of the leopard looks a bit different in details/sharpness, compared to the neck underneath that branch. Not sure if that was further away than the neck! You were there not me.
Great image. Very well done
I agree with Anette about sharpness on back neck. I'm a BIG fan of f8 if at all possible. And sorry, but again (not for you, you heard it from me, but for others) I wonder why we shoot so tight? Pull back some and crop in PS for composition. That's why God gave us PS
Leopard I think needs a bit more saturation.
Such "blown" skies will always bother, whites work better in B&W or color prints. That is, prints are reflected light. With our monitors being directed light, too much white over powers all else. ( I wish I could reference a scientific backup of my directed/reflected viewing theory, but still looking). Or, maybe my tired old eyes have a lot of flare in them .
Tom
ps - think I'll start a thread over in tech or general forum about this light type thing.
Tom - there would not have been enough ss to get the sharpness I prefer if I went to f8. I composed this how I wanted to, something different. I spent substantial time with these leopards and took over 2000 images of them over the course of a few days so I had plenty of opportunity to experiment. This was one of those experiments. Not every shot can or should conform to rules. Photography would be pretty boring that way - both taking images and viewing them. You seem to approach photography from a more scientific and clinical bg. Though I am presuming this from your comments, since you don't post any of your own images.
We have had this conversation before. I prefer for my images to reflect the conditions that existed on the day I took the image. I won't swap a blue sky for one that was overcast. I generally don't clone or extend the canvas. I prefer to try to get as much right in camera than to rely on PS or other programs to correct them later. If I do choose to alter an image in one of these ways I fully disclose it and consider the result more of an artistic interpretation.
I exposed for the leopard. If I had exposed for the sky, the leopard would have been too dark and recovering it in your beloved software would have introduced unacceptable noise. I suppose I could have tried 2 images in the field, one exposed for the leopard and one for the sky and then blended them but that's not something I do, especially with moving wildlife.
I am still wondering if we are going to see any of your images where you put your theories and lectures to practice.
Thanks,
Rachel
Last edited by Rachel Hollander; 05-21-2013 at 07:59 PM.
Reason: deleted duplicate signature
"I am still wondering if we are going to see any of your images where you put your theories and lectures to practice."
I've put up around 25 images in wildlife over two years. None have a blank white sky.
Steve or Morkel - How does one find the images (thumbnails?) they have posted? I looked at my profile activity and it goes only back to April of this year. I need to do what to find everything? A listing of my photo posts and other activity.
These two will have to do for now. I don't like scanning multiple pages of old postings looking for my images. I wish I could refer you (or anyone) to a listing of my posted images, but, as I ask above, I don't know how.
I'm still working on a new one, being very careful about its IQ .
Thanks Rachel.
Sorry to go off topic (again), but I don't see such thing on lhs or anywhere near bottom.
I can put up a screen shot - somewhere?
I think I paid my subscription for the year .
Moderators, please remove this off top stuff if you wish.
Tom
Hi Rachel, now I a getting very jealous of your encounters with this Leopard, you were certainly fortunate to have so much time you could spend, however if it was me I would just stay with the leopard too so long as it did not distress the cub or Mum (Mom).
Techs look good as you have the SS and not an excessive amount of ISO, so looks balanced to me and IQ looks spot on. You might have gone to f/4, but lost SS, but eye to nose looks sharp so I would be happy with this. I can see the area Anette is referring to and this maybe down to perhaps this area being masked, perhaps if you reveal this area then a bit more detail will come through? What you may like to consider is adding a Mid tone adjustment overall, then a Luminosity one excluding the face, this I think will bring a bit more depth to the environment. The crop works, but also having perhaps a 1024 x 724 landscape format may add another option, as there is then more space for the Leopard to look into below.
Tom I cannot see any advantage of going to f/8 for a shot like this, plus if you do then to retain SS you would need to have a higher ISO which in turn would drop slightly the IQ as you know. We ALL have our preferred, quirky likes, I like to shoot f/5.6 because it works, however I will change according to the conditions and what I want to achieve within the image. Regarding the 'blown' sky, well that is down to the weather conditions which non of us have control over and therefore have to accept it, plus the conditions dictated that Rachel had to shoot in a particular way creating this effect. I do know some photographers who will shoot in a certain way and to record the image in a certain way so that in PP they can manipulate the image to get the image back to what we would like to see rather than replicate it as it was, however I think Rachel is not in that league and as always, her images portray as it was, therefore I do think you have to respect that and if you don't like blown skies fine, but that is a personal choice.
With regard to cropping, as we know this is oh so personal, however to frame & crop in the field I think is the right route IMHO. Obviously we need to leave some space/latitude around for the final version, but in doing so the image retains IQ, greater detail and how you initially wanted to present the image, etc, etc, as you never want to crop hard in at PP stage, this is not good practice and it will show in your final image, irrespective of how good you are.
I'm still working on a new one, being very careful about its IQ .
We are all looking forward to seeing it Tom, it's like being an expectant father, Im now pacing up & down, but haven't broken out the cigars just yet.
TFS
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Hi Steve - thanks, I'll take a look at your suggested tweaks. The sightings, of varying length, were on 5 different game drives over the course of 6 days and neither mother nor cub ever seemed stressed by our presence. If they were, we would have left.
As to the area behind the branch, I think that is the area we have seen in a couple of other images of the cub where there is sort of a sudden color shift. No masking there on this one, the pp was identical to the pp on the rest of the leopard.
Sorry Rachel, wasn't thinking about the colour shift, just if you had applied any NR to the BKG then you may have not revealed that area of fur, hence the lack of detail, but no deal breaker.
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
The detail on the cub is absolutely amazing...This image makes me want to bring back all those wild cat shots I have taken in the Kalahari recently...deleted them because I could not fix the background...the cat was perfectly exposed...hmmm, this image makes me reconsider the way I look at my photographs-thank you Rachel, you opened my eyes...I think this is beautiful as is...
Rachel - sorry, I'm off to bed, will weigh in on the image tomorrow.
Tom - click on your name - click on VIEW PROFILE - then in the LHS column under your avatar click on "FIND LATEST STARTED THREADS"
This should take you to the following screen http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...vBForum_Thread
I like the "peeping through the branches" look here, Rachel. To me the leopard looks a bit "washed out" in terms of colour, easy to punch up the vibrance/saturation selectively.
Tom - you do know that f8 is different for each lens? DOF-wise I would compare f8 on a 70-200 at 200mm to f11 or even f14 on a 500mm focal length.
I also don't see a too sudden shift in sharpness from in-focus to OOF regions which is something I've seen you bring up in your comments about using f8. Why would you then want more of the distracting branches and foliage in focus, since the leopard is tack sharp and in focus?
"Tom - you do know that f8 is different for each lens? DOF-wise I would compare f8 on a 70-200 at 200mm to f11 or even f14 on a 500mm focal length."
Yeah Morkel I know.
Do you know why? And referring to a table or DOF calculator is not the answer. DOF tables and calculator are the results of camera/lens science. What is the optical/physics/mathematics principle behind it?
Tom
Last edited by Tom Graham; 05-23-2013 at 11:23 AM.
Tom - I would prefer not to have my thread hijacked with an engineering and technical argument. Please take your discussion on DOF to the appropriate forum.
I agree. Tom, maybe start a thread in the general forums.
Originally Posted by Tom Graham
Do you know why? And referring to a table or DOF calculator is not the answer. DOF tables and calculator are the results of camera/lens science. What is the optical/physics/mathematics principle behind it?
Tom
I'm an engineer, and I don't care why. I'd rather know when it will make a difference than know how it really works. Quite liberating
Last edited by Morkel Erasmus; 05-23-2013 at 01:33 PM.