Theme - Boxing kangaroos

[Don Railton]

I am a little reluctant to post this because its not a good as i wish, both in terms of composition and IQ. It is however an example of young male Kangaroos sparing at each other and establishing the 'pecking order', which may interest some, so here it is... The image shows how kangaroos use the tail to balance and support themselves during this sparing. The tail is very strong, and is integral for maintaining the efficiency in their hopping motion. Sort of acts as a spring and stores energy. These two guys were bouncing up and down like yoyo's making focusing and composition difficult. I degenerated to the 'spray and pray' shooting technique. In hindsite I should have upped the ISO to get a little more shutter speed, but i dident..

1d4 and 500 F4 + 1.4 TC hand held, crouching.
100 sec @ F8, iso 1000

Almost full frame.. Processed in ACR and a bit of sharpening...

DON

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Don, nice to have you posting in this part of the forum and also posting on other threads too within Wildlife.

Firstly your image doesn't carry an embedded colour profile, I think you missed an action whilst converting for web, which is not like you. I agree on your own self critique, and as you say the big issue is, too low a SS. I might have also dropped your DoF, you really need a fast SS to freeze the action. I think if had done this then it could have been a really interesting image, but hopefully you may have another opportunity over the next few weeks? The tails look like they just disappear into the ground, I also like the fact one is almost vertical and the other is leaning back, as if it had been hit.

IMHO I don't feel this is a keeper sadly, but you can extract a bit more depth from the subjects, likewise adding some more sharpening does help. As it stands I would clone out the other tail creeping in on the LHS. Not sure if the attached helps and I'm doing this remotely on the laptop so not ideal, but... BTW do you have PS CC or just PS, as there could also be something you could try if you have CC?

TFS
Steve

[Don Railton]

Hi Steve. Thanks for the comment and help... I agree completely that more shutter speed is needed, this action came 'out of the blue' when I was set up for the more sedate roo's feeding in quite overcast conditions. Caught me on the hop so to speak. The only reason I kept these is for interest sake in the interaction between the roos, and thought it might be of interest for others.

Thanks for pointing out the lack of embedded profile, I have had to rebuild the PC and reinstall PS (its CS6 BTW, not CC) recently and apparently I will need to set up the default for web exports.. I did not notice it was missing. I will check out what the roo's are up to this weekend...

regards

DON

[Rachel Hollander]

Don - you and Steve have really covered the critique. I do always like to see your images of kangaroos so good luck this weekend and keep the ss higher. Thanks for participating in our new theme too!

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

The only reason I kept these is for interest sake in the interaction between the roos, and thought it might be of interest for others.

You are absolutely correct, and good to see diversity in both subject and behaviour.

If you have had to reinstall, check also:

Colour settings under the top menu bar Edit
Convert to Profile under the top menu bar Edit
Save for web, that the correct boxes are ticked

Drop me a line if you need any help.

cheers
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

I'd love to see this in person one day, Don. Steve did a good job on the colour which also bugged me initially.
I think you either needed to have SS much higher (as per your own admission) or much lower (think 1/10) with (hopefully) the heads nicely defined - this may have required vertical panning as well.
Thanks for your contributions to Wildlife!