The careful wolf

[Gregor Bergquist]

I´ll continue with some shots from my trip to Finland. If anyone want, you can read about my trip on this blog. It is in swedish, but you could surely understand a lot with google translate.
Anyway. This was a wolf that showed himself for a short moment, my last day there. I´m really glad I did get the opportunity to photo him, because for me wolfs are more mythical than bears and (the more rare) wolverine. As you can see on the techs, there was not much light left. It was in the dying minutes of the evening. Out of camera the picture have a really strong blue/magenta cast. Not so surprising considering the light. In a way I would say that the light is kind of blue this time of the day. I have worked with the color temp, and this is my try.




Nikon D3
Nikon 600 mm
f4.0 | 1/200 SS | ISO-6400

Cropped, adjusted some levels and color temp, sharpen and quite a bit of noise reduction.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Quite a sighting - I too love wolves a lot...
I like the environment here. It's always tough to get the colours just right, especially in the "blue hour". It looks nice and natural to me.
I might leave some of the blue in the forest for mood if it were mine (making sure the wolf doesn't look blue), but you were there....

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Gregor - Always exciting to see a wolf in the wild and I like the inclusion of the habitat here. I'm guessing the -.67 EC and the ISO of 6400 contributed to the noise here. Still a nice image though. I would consider adding a bit more pop to the wolf to separate it a bit from the bg.

TFS,
Rachel

[Loi Nguyen]

Nice sighting! Looks like you were pretty close to the wolf. I can appreciate the problem of photographing a wolf at f4 and ISO6400, f4 does not give you much DOF and the high ISO requires NR which robs the details. I find the wolf a bit flat and needs more clarity and contrast. Loi

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gregor, I really like this, good choice on the format.

Perhaps having a bit more below may help, but difficult to judge on the posting, just a thought. Try adding in Levels 5:0:242 and some mid tone, just brings a bit more depth to the image. Nice one.

TFS
Steve

[Brendon Cremer]

Indeed a very nice image and scene very well captured, ISO 6400 a petty serious push for the D3 but one has to do what one has to do. Colours look great and my initial thought where the image needed a little more depth, Steve has given some great advice to do this. Otherwise lovely image.

[edwardselfe]

Really nice image - I think it might benefit from a bit more below as per suggestion. Love the small improvements that Steve's made.
Ed

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Gregor,

very nice image of this wolf/ Love the scene around him very much. Steve has improved the image quite a bit. ISO 6400 a bit work I assume
Guess have to take my blue thunder ( my car, a jeep ) to drive up next year to Finland. That shouldn't take to long from our place. Just to look and see

Have a great day

Ciao

Anette

[Gregor Bergquist]

Hi

Thanks for the input. Steve you clearly improved the picture. I have been trying i LR to redo the picture but don´t really get there. Then as before, I guess "Try adding in Levels 5:0:242" is PS-talk.

Thaanks a lot anyway, Gregor

[Steve Kaluski]

Yep, basically adjusting the Histogram in Levels and backing off so it's just before both Black & Whites begin to clip. Occasionally you may find you need to check the Levels after exporting I have found, you may get it spot on, however as I say, once in a while you need to tweak it before finer adjustments in PS, just my take.