Cute Little Pachyderm

[Arthur Morris]

This image of a young African Elephant was created on my recent Tanzania Photo-Safari at a luxury mobile tented camp oon the Mara River, Serengeti, Tanzania with the hand held Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS lens with Internal 1.4X TC (with the internal TC in place at 420mm) and the EOS-1D X.

ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/250 sec. at f/5.6.

The new lens is amazingly versatile. You can see all Canon telephoto lens specs here. You can see some wide Serengeti plains images made with the 2-4 and learn of my harrowing trip home here.

I have been and will be posting dozens of Galapagos images made with the 2-4 and have begun posting images from the Africa trip made with it. The 2-4 is the only big lens I am taking on my upcoming Bear Boat and Dahlia IPTs. You can visit the blog here and scroll down or hit Postlist/2013 and find a ton of 200-400 images. Or follow the link to the Bulletin Archives. Only Bulletins 445 & 446 contain 200-400 images. I will be doing a blog post on which big lens (or lenses) to bring on a given trip for the Canon Digital Learning Center Blog here soon. And that will be followed up with a Focus On feature for the DLC website.

As for the image, don't be shy; all comments are welcome.

[Gregor Bergquist]

Hi Arthur

Very cute and nice elephant. The 2-4 certainly seems sharp.

I would try to crop top quarter of the picture to get background as clean as possibly.

TFS / Gregor

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Gregor, That is a good suggestion. How's this?

ps: the lens with or without the TC is incredibly sharp.

[Gregor Bergquist]

I was thinking something like this, but maybe it is to tight. What do you think? One more thing could be to remove the green leafs in the foreground.

/Gregor

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Artie - Nice to see you posting in Wildlife. It is a cutie with nice detail and texture. I like the raised trunk and walking pose. I agree with Gregor's crop from the top but would keep the space at the bottom.

TFS,
Rachel

[Daniel Cadieux]

What a cutie!! I love the texture you got on the skin. My favorite is the post in pane 3...the trees along the top need to stay there IMO as they offer an important element of context to the habitat. The one bright grass stem touching the tip of the trunk could go though. Glad to see the new 2-4 is as good as advertised!

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Dan. I agree on the need for trees. The lens however, is actually much better than as advertised. And though it does not matter for elephant photography, it is the worlds best flight lens.

[Arthur Morris]

For Dan with the bright yellow grass stem by the trunk removed via Denise Ippolito cloning on a layer technique and Divide and Conquer/Patch Tooling. All as described in detail in Digital Basics.

[Diane Miller]

That's obviously an awesome lens, and a wonderful capture!

I think the trees do contribute to the context, but if they were less contrasty they would recede more, competing less with the elephant. Also, for me, the BG grass is on the bright side. I have taken the liberty of making a suggested version, with a Shadows-Highlights adjustment and a further lowering of contrast on the trees. (It's an animated GIF. I had to make it smaller to get the file size below 400K.)

I probably don't have the color of the elephant correct, but that isn't the point for this post. The original posted image did not have an embedded profile, and a GIF does not have the color range of a JPEG.

But assuming it was sRGB, even though not tagged, I see a slight warm cast, which I have taken the liberty of bringing down. That is also not the main point and is easy to ignore for those who disagree with it.

[Diane Miller]

I'm not seeing the animation so assume it doesn't work here, but at least what I'm seeing here is the altered version. The elephant hes gone a little flat -- with a modicum of charity that can also be ignored, as it wasn't intended to be a "final version" -- just an illustration of lightening the trees and darkening the grass somewhat.

If I could figure out how to delete the post I would do so and replace it with just the altered version at full size, with more detail on the elephant.

How do I delete my own post?

[Arthur Morris]

No worries. I see your point about lightening the trees. Thanks for taking the time to do the repost.

[Loi Nguyen]

Artie, I actually prefer your OP. The tree needs to be there to provide a context and the less tight crop gives this cutie some room. a very tight crop gives an illusion that you were shooting down on the elephant at a steeper angle. On my monitor, the grass above the e;e is a bit bright. Yes, I can see the dark boxes on the web site clearly :} Loi

[Russell Johnson]

Cute little ele in this pick.

I am not too fussed about the trees in the background, though do agree that image appears a touch warm and the highlights in the grass could do with toning down.

The texture on the ellie is great, though for my personal preference, is perhaps starting to look a rouch over processed for my taste considering the overcast light and the lower contrast in the surrounding scene.

Did a quick re-post for the warm and highlights in LR.

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, I actually prefer your OP. The tree needs to be there to provide a context and the less tight crop gives this cutie some room. a very tight crop gives an illusion that you were shooting down on the elephant at a steeper angle. On my monitor, the grass above the e;e is a bit bright. Yes, I can see the dark boxes on the web site clearly :} Loi

Thanks Loi. I disagree as to the shooting down bit. The angle of declination is the angle of declination. I agree that the patch of grass above the little one's face is brighter than the rest of the grasses. And I know why: because it was lighter :).

[Arthur Morris]

Cute little ele in this pick.

I am not too fussed about the trees in the background, though do agree that image appears a touch warm and the highlights in the grass could do with toning down.

The texture on the ellie is great, though for my personal preference, is perhaps starting to look a rouch over processed for my taste considering the overcast light and the lower contrast in the surrounding scene.

Did a quick re-post for the warm and highlights in LR.

Thanks Russell. I like your cooler version a lot. I had already cooled it off quite a bit from the yellow ORIG. I am fine with the texture of the skin and I do like the bit of a crop shown in Pane #3. It is important to remember that there will always be differences in individual monitors, viewing conditions, and most importantly, in personal tastes.

I appreciate all the comments and suggestions here. When I have some time this afternoon I will post a favorite final version, at least until someone else makes a good suggestion.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Artie, well I think this illustrates/typifies just how good this lens is and what you & I were saying in an exchange of replies on another thread in the Forum. Great depth & detail and the zoom just gives you so much flexibility in composition and if you need to zoom in & out then with the 1.4 it's just a click of a button. I prefer the crop in pane 3, but like the more cooler look of the subject. Having a slightly lighter grass seems to isolate the subject better, but am viewing on a laptop so this may be misleading? I do think the shadows, skin folds and contour lines just build/define the form and would not lighten anything, as it's an integral part to the character of this animal. The raised trunk and legs in motion just bolster the image, and you just know what is happening here.

Look forward to more.

TFS
Steve

PS Andy is out in the Mara now, so I guess you two have really set the benchmark on this lens.

[Stan Cunningham]

Glad you are going to keep the trees as I'm with Daniel on showing the surrounding habitat. I like Diane's lightening of the trees but it's a minor difference to me any way. Nice shot, nice lens and a great composition with behavior.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Artie,
Beautiful image of a darn cute Elle. The details are awesome, I like the raised trunk and walking pose. The lens seems stunning for its IQ and flexibility! I was in Masai Mara from 3rd Aug till 10th Aug this month, had a great time with my 5D3, 7D, 500 II, 70-200 f/4 IS. I did wish for the flexibility of the zoom but the 500 II with 1.4 TC gave lot of reach & performed flawlessly. Am still editing my pics and will share my photos soon on the forum. Steve, Rachel and Loi did help me out with choosing my kit (I left behind my 100-400 lens for this trip). I so wish I could buy the 200-400 L right now looking at your blog pics!! :-)
Cheers
sanjeev

[Arthur Morris]

Sanjeev, The need for the 200-400 is much less for folks with the 500 than for folks with the 600 as there are less focal length holes to fill.... We are looking forward to seeing your images.

[Morkel Erasmus]

A cute ellie, Artie! Sorry for being late here (had a family downtime weekend).
Lovely texture in his skin, and I am "for" the trees. Russel's repost takes it for me.
I am looking forward to hopefully seeing more of your African images here over the coming weeks!