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Thread: Wild Dog Staring at Me

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    Default Wild Dog Staring at Me

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    It was time for the pack to go hunting just before sunset. This is the last dog in the pack who seemed to be more interested in staring at me and joining the pack for the evening hunt.

    1DX
    500f4 II
    1/160
    f8
    ISO-800
    Bean bag on the ground
    Cropped bottom and a little bit on the left, rotated.

    Cloned out an OOF elephant dunk in front of the dog and cleaned up his face a little.

    I feel so rusty after weeks of not doing much PP or photography due to travel and work. appreciate your comments.

    Thank you

    Loi

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    Lifetime Member Andre Pretorius's Avatar
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    Hi Loi

    Love your low angle! Eye contact a big bonus!
    In my opinion the image needs a slight rotation.
    On the laptop, can't comment on colours.
    Looks a bit unnatural where the dung was, what if you blur it a bit rather than removing it?

    Andre
    Regards

    Andre.

    www.gappimages.com

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Hi Loi, good to see you getting back into the saddle again and I agree, leave things even for a short while you do get rusty, it's a real pain that work gets in our way.

    I agree, the low POV is good and I like the eye connection with the viewer. Not wild about having the rear of the dogs to view, but nothing you can do, that's wildlife. I would also have preferred not to have had the dog right in the BKG which clashes with the RH dog. I know you were still getting to grips with the camera & the photographic ways, but you really needed to crank up that ISO, I would have no hesitation in going to with 2000 or 2500 to get the SS, it great and you have no real fears of noise, as such, it's one great body compared to previous ones. At f/8 I would have expected more detail/depth in the face, but at 1/160 you may have had the slightest movement.

    By all means practice if you need to clone, but I would leave it in until you can really get to grips with things, but other may disagree, and it's good to have other thoughts. I would have also removed the LH dung pile as for me, it does catch my eye.

    As it stands I would drop the slight blue cast, add a hint of black & neutral in at around 70% and apply to key, darker areas. Add a luminosity layer at around 50-60% to bring up some colour to the dogs, but you could perhaps use some saturation, once happy, flatten duplicate & sharpen.

    Below is with those changes and I shovelled up the dung too, albeit very roughly both on the left & centre.
    Hope it helps and nice to see you back in the grove. Hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving.

    TFS
    Steve
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    Neat shot Loi. The eye contact and eye level POV is terrific.
    There is a noticeable smudge where you cloned out the ellie poo and I agree with Steve that if you're cloning out the poo you may as well get all of it.
    Steve's re-post has a lot more punch and richer colours. Maybe one day hi sPP skills will be available as an implant.

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    BPN Member Anette Mossbacher's Avatar
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    Hi Loi,

    Steve stole my blue cast he as well brought up great improvement with this one. I agree with the dung pile what Steve mentioned. Do not mind much that the others are in BG, as said already, not much someone can do about it.

    Have a great weekend

    Ciao
    Anette

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    BPN Member Andreas Liedmann's Avatar
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    Hi Loi,
    good to see you back, i made my drive back , too, see how long it will last .

    Like the low POV and the framing with the one dog facing the viewer and the others turned away.
    Steve Rp took it where it needs to go, good job, Maestro.

    There will never be a Steve implant, never. Just work hard and harder , and eventually you will get close but not close enough. He is too much experienced , compared to us.Sadly , most of the times he has got an answer, regarding the point when you think i know what he has done……….with this image.And the he comes around the corner, with something totally different than you thought, fascinating and some times frustrating……LOL:
    Go the harder way and you learn more, work the PS stuff like **** , and if you are intense enough working you will become better , with a little help from……..

    Cheers Andreas

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Hi Loi - sorry I'm late to this one due to the holiday. Welcome back. I agree the low pov and eye contact is great. I also see the blue cast and wish for more detail in the blacks. Steve's suggestions and rp are as usual spot on.

    TFS,
    Rachel

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    Thank you everyone for your comments. I tried to find a neutral gray in this image, but couldn't find any :( so I just went with the Auto setting. I saw the blue cast on the RHS dog and did a -10 Saturation on the blue, but agreed that it did't quite take it away. Steve is spot on as always :)

    I wanted to kick myself several times over when I got back to camp after the wild dog encounter and realized that many of my shots didn't have enough SS. When we were out looking for them, the sun was out, so although it was late in the day, ISO-800 seemed OK, but then a cloud blocked the sun shortly after we found the dogs and like an idiot, I happily turned the wheel to dial in the exposure without checking what SS I was at. I hope by processing these precious images, it will remind me to check SS and ISO next time.

    Loi

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Loi, I fully understand your frustration, however, IMHO if you have learnt something from this then not all is lost and therefore you are then able to correct these small issues in the future. Everything is a learning curves, and I too can look back at older images even 2 years ago and say, if only I had the 1DX then, or the 200-400, etc etc and boy, I still make some humdingers, but you won't see them or maybe you may will, if Rachel & I can set some things up for the future?

    Just be positive and like a lot of members here, just think how far you have come in such a short space of time and how you have grown.
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator Gabriela Plesea's Avatar
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    Welcome back Loi, and it is great to see you posting again! Great sighting, and I am glad to see some wild dog without collars, around here most of them are collared because of monitoring and so difficult to clone these things out. The dung did not really bother me that much, perhaps this is because we are so used to seeing dung in the bush. I once posted on a website an image of a male lion with a huge pile of dung in front of his paws-makes me laugh when I think about it now, yet on second thought, if it did not bother the lion, why should it bother me? I guess the poor lion was hiding behind the dung, trying to escape the camera!

    I see the techs have all been covered and Steve's RP deals with all issues ( Steve, how much for the implant, and is there a discount if I buy two, one for me and another for Andre?), and Loi, this is one lovely capture of these precious endangered species, don't be too cross with yourself about the settings-this happens to everyone and sometimes excitement gets in the way, well done with the image and PP work, looking forward to more of these painted dogs!!!

    Kind regards,
    Gabriela Plesea

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    Always love seeing wild dogs and I think the techs have been covered. Keep practising on the cloning skills, especially here, one day no one will comment or notice where you've cloned something out and you'll know that your processing is spot on.

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