Biyamiti King

[Thinus Schoeman]

I visited the Kruger Park during December 2013, and was very fortunate to encounter two male lions on a dirt road one morning in the south of the park near a place called Biyamiti weir in the early hours after daybreak.
I spent 45 minutes all alone with the two males, and during this period the lions roared three times at very close distance. It certainly was a sighting I will not easily forget. The male lion in this image was in the prime of its life, and was a magnificent specimen.

The image was captured on cloudy day. The image is a slight crop.

Camera Model Canon EOS 70D
Tv(Shutter Speed) 1/640
Av(Aperture Value) 5.6
ISO Speed 800
Lens Canon EF400mm f/5.6L USM

Shot from my vehicle using a bean bag.

I have done the editing in Lightroom 5.
Slight adjustment of exposure and contrast in LR.

Thanks for looking, and comments and feedback will be appreciated.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Thinus - Your description refers to a B&W image but you posted a color image?

Rachel

[Thinus Schoeman]

Rachel you are correct, I first planned to load a B&W image before changing my mind. I'll correct it. Thanks.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Thinus - Welcome to the Wildlife Forum. Sounds like a great sighting and he looks like a battle weary/scarred male. Nice first post. I like the portrait comp and the rich colors of the mane. Interesting dark lines at the mouth and an intense stare with a good pov. Techs in the field look good too. I think you can tame the highlights a bit and bring out some more detail especially in the upper lip area. If it were mine I would also give it a bit more midtone contrast. Let us know if you need guidance in how to make the adjustments or if you have any questions about the suggestions.


It would be great if you would also add your thoughts to other wildlife images. We recommend commenting on 3-5 other wildlife images each time you post your own image. Your comments don't have to be technical in nature. Just tell us what you like and/or don't like about an image. Frequent participation is the best and fastest way to learn and to become part of the forum community.


TFS,
Rachel

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Thinus, this is a great portrait of a magnificent male lion. The mane and nice green BG make this image. Rachel gave you good advice on the highlights. They sort of distracting and can be toned down a little. Welcome to the Wildlife Forum. Loi

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Thinus - Welcome to the Wildlife Forum. Sounds like a great sighting and he looks like a battle weary/scarred male. Nice first post. I like the portrait comp and the rich colors of the mane. Interesting dark lines at the mouth and an intense stare with a good pov. Techs in the field look good too. I think you can tame the highlights a bit and bring out some more detail especially in the upper lip area. If it were mine I would also give it a bit more midtone contrast. Let us know if you need guidance in how to make the adjustments or if you have any questions about the suggestions.


It would be great if you would also add your thoughts to other wildlife images. We recommend commenting on 3-5 other wildlife images each time you post your own image. Your comments don't have to be technical in nature. Just tell us what you like and/or don't like about an image. Frequent participation is the best and fastest way to learn and to become part of the forum community.


TFS,
Rachel

Hi Rachel, thanks a lot for looking and the feedback is highly appreciated. I am fairly new to photography, and I'm really interested in wildlife and bird photography, although landscapes is also something I would like to venture into.

I do my PP in Lightroom 5, and I will be first to admit I have a lot to learn not only about the power of LR, but also about how to get the best out of my images.. It is bit trial and error for me at this point, so any suggestions and advice will be put to good use.

Thanks again.
Thinus

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Loi, Thanks for looking and for the welcome, your comments are really appreciated. By the way, I really like a lot of your images.

[Nancy Bell]

Awesome experience! You captured a great front view of this mighty male. He seems to have a huge amount of scars. For me, a bit off the top allows a stronger focus on those intense eyes.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Beautiful sharp image of one of Africa's magnificent cats! I'll never get used to those ice cold stares. Well done!

[Don Railton]

Hi Thinus,

I wish my first post looked like this...! A nice composition of a battle scarred warrior... I like the water dripping from the muzzle and the intense eye contact. I too think that there is a little detail you might recover around the mouth..

DON

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Thinus

Lovely capture of this majestic animal!

Know the place, have not been there for years, use to get eye level images there of hippo and waders.

Agree with bit more detail to be extracted, do you resharpen after resizing and before saving for web?

Andre

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Thinus and a warm welcome to BPN!

This is one gorgeous male lion and what a great pose! The crop is great, I tend to agree with Nancy that it would help to take off from the top, just a tad. Colours look very natural, I just feel that some more sharpening could benefit this image (although I am often guilty of over-sharpening), also if you could extract a bit more detail in certain areas, like the nose, mouth, and perhaps the dark areas of the mane. Great advice from Rachel above, this is one beautiful image and you could do so much more with it, we love to see images re-worked and reposted here on BPN, and I certainly look forward to see more images from you

Kind regards,

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Thinus

Lovely capture of this majestic animal!

Know the place, have not been there for years, use to get eye level images there of hippo and waders.

Agree with bit more detail to be extracted, do you resharpen after resizing and before saving for web?

Andre

Hi Andre, thank you so much for looking and for the comments.
I am still learning how to use the adjustment brush in LR for localized sharpening etc. I will give it another try.
I usually do sharpen after re-sizing. For this image I used the masking tool, set to 70, and I upped sharpening after that to 35. No localized sharpening has been applied, which I will try to see if I can extract more details around the mouth. I darkened the mane by upping the blacks, but I may have overdone it a little.

Thanks again!
Thinus

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Thinus - Welcome to the Wildlife Forum. Sounds like a great sighting and he looks like a battle weary/scarred male. Nice first post. I like the portrait comp and the rich colors of the mane. Interesting dark lines at the mouth and an intense stare with a good pov. Techs in the field look good too. I think you can tame the highlights a bit and bring out some more detail especially in the upper lip area. If it were mine I would also give it a bit more midtone contrast. Let us know if you need guidance in how to make the adjustments or if you have any questions about the suggestions.TFS,
Rachel

Hi Rachel, Thanks for the valuable advice. I take note of the highlights and will give special attention to that when doing my re-edit. I'm afraid I need some assistance with the 'midtone contrast', It will be appreciate it you can give me some guidance how to go about adjusting the midtone contrast.

Thanks again fro the detailed feedback!
Thinus

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Thinus, a very big welcome to the Wildlife forum.
Nice starter from you of this powerful looking male.Good looking colors and overall tones, with good separation between them.Image is bit lacking in detail in parts of the fur and looks a bit soft there. Have you used any NR on the whole image ? If so i would just use the NR on the BG or very selectively on the subject.Agree with Rachel about the detail in the HL.
Re mid tone contrast, there are many ways to get more mid tone contrast, i would suggest "google mid tone contrast" and you will find very detailed tutorials on that subject.
I personally do it with USM within PS with settings 15 -40 for the first value and 60 to 215 for the second value by leaving the third at 0.All depending on the image and never use it at 100 % opacity.Many times i use a layer mask to get the effect where i want it to be.
A good way to restrict this affect to the mid tones is the "Blend If " command for the layer . To find out how that works look in various tutorials on the web.Too long and complicated to describe .
Hope that helps a bit.

TFS Andreas

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hello Thinus and a warm welcome to BPN!

This is one gorgeous male lion and what a great pose! The crop is great, I tend to agree with Nancy that it would help to take off from the top, just a tad. Colours look very natural, I just feel that some more sharpening could benefit this image (although I am often guilty of over-sharpening), also if you could extract a bit more detail in certain areas, like the nose, mouth, and perhaps the dark areas of the mane. Great advice from Rachel above, this is one beautiful image and you could do so much more with it, we love to see images re-worked and reposted here on BPN, and I certainly look forward to see more images from you

Kind regards,

Hi Gabriela, thanks for looking and for the detailed feedback. I see what you mean with taking some off the top, I'll try it when doing my re-edit. I I always guilty of being afraid of over-sharpening and usually end of not sharpening enough. I do think however my SS on a cloudy day was a tad low seeing that I used a non-IS lens. I was weary to push the ISO's on the 70D too high. My 6D is great at high ISO's but the 70D, not being full frame, is not as great at high ISO.

I'll rework it and post towards next weekend.

Thanks again
Thinus.

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Thinus, a very big welcome to the Wildlife forum.
Nice starter from you of this powerful looking male.Good looking colors and overall tones, with good separation between them.Image is bit lacking in detail in parts of the fur and looks a bit soft there. Have you used any NR on the whole image ? If so i would just use the NR on the BG or very selectively on the subject.Agree with Rachel about the detail in the HL.

TFS Andreas

Hi Andreas, Thanks for looking and for the feedback. I did apply noise reduction and sharpening using the masking tool set to 70, with a little adjustment on the detail slider. I can see what you mean, the manes looks a impacted by noise reduction. I'll take your comments to heart when doing the rework.

Thanks again
Thinus

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Don, thanks for looking and for the positive comments and feedback. I'll do my best to recover more detail with the adjustment brush in LR.

Regards
Thinus

[Morkel Erasmus]

I'm late to this one, Thinus - but welcome from my side as well! I am looking forward to seeing more of your wildlife photos on here...
Sounds like a cracking sighting!

There have been many good suggestions already. If you are going to persisit in Lightroom as your final and only processing tool I would recommend that you do all your RAW processing and tonal tweaks, then output the file to the desired size. I would then bring the resized exported file BACK into LR, and do the sharpening then. All other sharpening you do in LR is classified as "input sharpening" except if you specify a generic output sharpening during "export" - which is not as comprehensive and detailed as I like it to be. By resharpening the downsized file you will get a better idea of how it will appear in web posting.


(as mentioned - don't hesitate to jump in on the critique threads posted by others - that's how we all develop and grow)

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Thinus, I am away hence the delay.

I'll leave it to others to give a more detailed feedback as I only have my MB pro with me, so not ideal. However, just importing the image into LR, the blacks in the nose are choked, block, but easily corrected. I would also select the subject and just tweak/darken the subject with an inverted filter which brings a bit more depth to him as you are using LR5, but hopefully 5.3. I would also just blown in a bit of the green BKG bottom LH corner by your signature as it balances things out.

Techs look good, likewise the framing.

As per the same message we have been saying to Tobie, LR is a great tool, but it has a limited amount you can do, you really need to think about the combination of LR & PS. The two programmes dovetail well and will really be the only software you need as only having LR with limit the amount you can do, plus many of the suggestions will not be achievable solely within LR.

Finally, as Rachel mentioned, participating in other threads too is a great way to learn and be part of the BPN spirit.

TFS
Steve

[Neil Burton]

I could spend a week at Biyamiti weir and never get bored. Never saw a cat there though. I think enough has been said on LR but I know a bloke who does some great tutorials if you are interested. Loads to learn with that software. But you have a great pose to work with, which counts for quite alot!

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Steve, thanks a lot for the feedback. I just realize how much more I have to learn regarding PP reading all the comments and feedback. One thing is certain, there certainly is a wealth of knowledge and experience on this site.

I take note of your suggestion of adding PS to my editing workflow, and eventually I will have to do that. I think I first have to master LR before going that route.
I am anyway going to do my best to take all the advice I have been given to re-edit the image in LR and extract more from it.

Regards
Thinus

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi Morkel, thanks for the welcome, kind comments, as well as feedback and advice given. I certainly have a long way to go to learn how to fully utilize the power of LR, before I will add PS to my editing workflow. I will probably have to get some expert advice to improve my editing and editing workflow in general.

I will certainly put your sharpening advice to the test, after importing the resized image back into LR.

Thanks again
Thinus