The guy is knows as the Fan throated Lizard ((Sitana sp. ) i am not sure of the exact classification of this sitana so just left it as sp.
In my area we find them with white fans which to me are pretty however not great attraction , i yesterday got to know that these were displaying and were colourful , so drove today morning to that place and here is what i got there.
This one is a male , interestingly these start displaying only when the ground has heated up and the peak is normally at mid day when the light is pretty harsh, this is clicked with the sun over head.
The are more cautious about humans and stop display if they get a human in the eyeline so i decided to click this with a 400 + 2x
5D MIII + 400 f2.8 + 2x tc
1/160 , f 11, ISO 125
This is a small lizard displaying close to the ground just coming out of the grass , so was difficult getting a cleaner image
Critiques and comments are welcome
I am not sure if this should be here or in the Macro forum.
Gorgeous details and colours with a beautiful background. I would crop in a bit as the empty space around doesn't work for me. It's a beautiful portrait and I wouldn't want to distract at all from the main event! Otherwise, you've sharpened it nicely and all colours look wonderful. Nature is awesome.
Ed
Hi Vishal - I think it's great that you posted this here. It gives us a bit more diversity. Fantastic detail, sharpness, colors, creamy bokeh and low pov. I do wish the foliage in front of the rock wasn't there but my guess is not much you could do about it in the field. Did you do any cloning in the darker area of the bg? There looks to be a slight repeating pattern there. It would be better if the darker area didn't intersect with the lizard but that's a very minor point for me. Did you crop this at all and if so from where? If you have a bit more on the rhs so as not to have clipped the foot there, that would be preferable. I would also trim the negative space on the top a bit. Overall, an excellent image.
Hi Vishal - I think it's great that you posted this here. It gives us a bit more diversity. Fantastic detail, sharpness, colors, creamy bokeh and low pov. I do wish the foliage in front of the rock wasn't there but my guess is not much you could do about it in the field. Did you do any cloning in the darker area of the bg? There looks to be a slight repeating pattern there. It would be better if the darker area didn't intersect with the lizard but that's a very minor point for me. Did you crop this at all and if so from where? If you have a bit more on the rhs so as not to have clipped the foot there, that would be preferable. I would also trim the negative space on the top a bit. Overall, an excellent image.
TFS,
Rachel
Rachel,
There is no cloning done on the BG it is as out of the camera , no noise reduction too, i guess the dark part in the BG is some stone that is OOF far behind the lizard.
i have a bit on the RHS however its only grass and stone as you can see the lizard here emerges from behind the stone and on fully on it, so the additional stone and grass was not adding much to it so did not include it , the remaining part of the foot is below the rock guess thats how the luck goes with me , and a time of the day when the sun is overhead and hitting your head with a 40degree C
thanks
Vishal, this is a wonderful image. Love the colors and sharpness. F11was an excellent choice. Agreed with Steve that the dark spot in the BG neat the lizard head is a slight distraction. I'd suggest cropping a bit more at the bottom. Loi
I like the colours and detail on this little guy very much, Vishal - and also the almost "regal" pose!
In an ideal world the OOF grass wouldn't be there but since it's not obscuring my view of the subject it's not a big issue to me personally.
Good to see some variety!
Hi Vishal, great to see a different specials and as Morkel said, one in such a 'regal' pose. On something like this, just watch your SS, upping the ISO to gain more SS would have helped and still retain the IQ you have already.
Just a thought, but adding a mid tone Curves adjustment to parts of the body just bring out a little more, plus reducing slightly the saturated red with help define the scales of the throat pouch too. I'm happy with a square crop, just come in a bit more, plus tweaking the FG in CS6 brings more separation & clarity to the subject, knocking back the slightly messy FG, IMHO, WDYT?
TFS
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Hi Vishal, great to see a different specials and as Morkel said, one in such a 'regal' pose. On something like this, just watch your SS, upping the ISO to gain more SS would have helped and still retain the IQ you have already.
Just a thought, but adding a mid tone Curves adjustment to parts of the body just bring out a little more, plus reducing slightly the saturated red with help define the scales of the throat pouch too. I'm happy with a square crop, just come in a bit more, plus tweaking the FG in CS6 brings more separation & clarity to the subject, knocking back the slightly messy FG, IMHO, WDYT?
TFS
Steve
Hi Steve,
Sorry for being late on responding was off for 6 days up north of India shooting,
On upping the ISO
The image was taken like mid day so there was a effect of heat that was coming off the ground, shooting few time before i realised that to cut the effect of the heat the best way to do it is to reduce the ISO to to lowest and the F value to as high as i can take, this helped me reduce or eliminate the haze kind of feel from the ground, i did have the ISO up in a image and realised the haze effect guess its more to do with sensitivity , i fail to understand the phenomenon however just something that worked .
The other tweaks to the image look great, the subject gets more into the focus and makes it stand out more. thanks for the help, it really helps me understand it more