This sea otter was definitely curious about me. Some processing in Lightroom to equalize exposure and color temperature across the two sides of the face. Comments and criticism welcome.
Bill
Canon 7D
Canon 500mm f/4 + 1.4x
1/640 f/9.0 ISO 400
This sea otter was definitely curious about me. Some processing in Lightroom to equalize exposure and color temperature across the two sides of the face. Comments and criticism welcome.
Bill
Canon 7D
Canon 500mm f/4 + 1.4x
1/640 f/9.0 ISO 400
Hi Bill - It's nice to see a sea otter. I'm not sure what you did colorwise but for me, it's all over the place in the wrong direction. There's a heavy yellow cast on most of the face, there's a blue cast in the shadows and some magenta near the waterline. It seems overly saturated too. Did you add saturation? Also is this a large crop? Sadly the IQ seems to be suffering as I would expect more detail and sharpness throughout at f9. Here's a rp addressing just the color issues and I simply dropped the yellows, blues and magenta in a hue saturation layer. It's still not where I would want it but gives you an idea.
Perhaps posting a jpeg of the straight out of camera will help us to help you. Or you can shoot me a raw through dropbox and I'll have a look.
TFS,
Rachel
My thoughts exactly - it's lacking sharpness on the fur (which usually ends up oversharp when wet) and has some strange colours. However, it's a beautiful image in nice surroundings and the otter has a cheeky look on his face which adds to the image - your timing to get the shot was spot on. Keep working on it.
Ed
HI Bill,
it is a very sweet image of a sea otter. Rachel has covered already most. I just would pull back the blue in the water as well a bit.
Have a great day
Ciao
Anette
Hi Billy, Otters are fantastic creatures and to get this close is great, but sadly both critical sharpness and more importantly, the overall colour rendition (colour balance) is not great, too saturated. Why not just export the RAW direct to PS and repost as an sRGB file with no adjustments apart from file size, then we hopefully can give you some better pointers in extracting the most from the image. The slightly startled look is nice and the central placement.
Just looking at the image, I get the impression parts like the nose and RHS of the face have been lightened, likewise there are some masking issues on the head above the eye and below the ear. You might like also to think about cropping some space at the foot of the image, as the bow wave is rather strong? Shooting from a boat (I assume) is never easy at the best of times, especially with that kit, so I would have dropped the DOF to around f/5.6 to gain more SS, not a lover of higher ISO on the 7D unless you are spot on with the Exposure.
TFS
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Thanks to everyone for the comments. Sorry for delaying in responding. Work has been brutal the last few days.
I completely agree about the color. I must have been blind when posting the original. Here's a version that's hopefully a little better. Can't do too much about the sharpness of the fur. Part of the unsharpness comes from blown patches in the highlights on the sunlit side. If you still want to fiddle with the raw file, let me know and I'll put it somewhere reasonable for retrieval.
BTW, if you're ever in the area near Monterey, California, there's a great place to see and photograph sea otters in the wild. Drive about 20 miles north to Moss Landing, and then follow Jetty Road out to the end. I've never gone there without seeing dozens of sea otters. Sometimes, especially early morning or late afternoon, you can see them hauled out on the beach. Often you'll see a couple making baby otters - watch for a playful pair.
Thanks again,
Bill
Hi Bill - thanks for the tip about where to find otters near Monteray. The colors still look off. I'm happy to look at the raw if you want.
Rachel
Hi Bill, I think you are working in the right direction, but the overall colour still has casts within it. If you have added any Saturation or Vibrancy, pull it back to zero, or perhaps try setting the WB to another setting ie daylight or auto, it might be a better starting point. I can get an almost 50/50/50 mid grey, but the saturated colours are just too strong elsewhere and I then can't balanced them out.
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Thanks very much for the offers of help. I've put a copy of the raw file for this image on my Google Drive, and made it publicly accessible. The link is https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-jx...it?usp=sharing I'll be grateful for any pointers. BTW, Steve, I didn't read your original response carefully. This is not taken from a boat. There's at least one spot at Moss Landing where you'll often see a solitary otter about 15 or 20 yards away from a low bridge. If you go there, it's the bridge that you come to right after turning off Highway 1 onto Jetty Road. Look on the side of the bridge away from the harbor, on your right as you drive in. If there's an otter there, it's feeding time. There are lots of opportunities to photograph otters with various types of shellfish. You can hear the crunch of the shells quite clearly from the area near the bridge.
Bill
Hi Bill, well, looking at the various postings within the thread I have to say you have done remarkably well in your processing, retrieving what you did. There is certainly more detail in the mouth than I have brought out. The light was quite harsh even at 3.00pm as you quite rightly said, the blown highlight are annoying, but little you could have done. With the light streaming in from the LHS the RH side would be in shadow so I kept it that way. I reduced the Blue saturation in it and managed to achieve almost a 50/50/50 mid grey to try and get a platform to start from, but this may be a more personal thing, especially with such an image like this. I also tried to bring out more depth (information content) with the sea.
Overall the look & feel is more towards the later part of the evening which I guess is not right and this is where working independently, not being there is a slight handicap.
From export to this, this has gone through quite a few changes and therefore I don't have a final file to forward back sadly, but it might give you a starting point as I had to keep making small refinements. I also thought this might work with an alternative crop to?
Thanks for the additional info about the location, certainly helps and always is a great to incorporate when initially posting and gives a better understanding behind the shot for the viewers/readers.
Bill, don't hold back, start to post more, you've dipped your toe in the water now.![]()
Cheers
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Steve, Thanks very much for the work you've put in on this image. I'm not entirely sure the camera's clock was set correctly, so the time of day may in fact be later in the day, as you estimate from the actual look of the image. In retrospect, I should have given a little less exposure to avoid clipping highlights on the sunlit side of the face. Small areas of clipping don't seem to show up on the histogram, and I have to remember that they're there nevertheless. I'm thinking that I should just go back and try for more images rather than beating this one much further. The location is about 20 minutes from my house
Thanks again,
Bill
Bill, if you have the time & the weather I would put the time in, especially if you can gauge the feeding times. Know any local fishermen who could perhaps get you out there for say 20-30 mins? Perhaps scavenge for some crab tip bits too for the Otters? I assume they don't wrap themselves up in kelp and then go to sleep? Some low level shots using their belly stone to crack the shells with would be a corker.
You could also try setting Highlights alert on the camera, when viewing the Histogram you get blinkies to indicate blown highlights. The 7D is not the most forgiving camera, although Daniel C has mastered that with superb images. Somewhere Morkel wrote something about the 7D here in Wildlife recently, but can't remember for whom, drop him a PM. Early mornings and late afternoons should give you the best light.
cheers
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.