Relaxing at Sundown

[Martin Dunn]

Cape Buffalo enjoying an evening bathe. Timbavati

Nikon D300s
Sigma 120-400mm lens @360mm
1/500s
f5.6
ISO450

handheld from vehicle

converted from RAW in Nikon capture.
converted to B+W in Nik Silver EFEX
sharpened in Photoshop Elements

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Martin - Looks like the light was harsh. Is this a large crop? Something looks strange, particularly in the upper bg, where there seems to be pixilation and artifacts. There's also a bright area around the back of the buffalo. Can you describe your pp a bit more or perhaps post a jpeg of the straight out of camera image so we can see if it is a pp issue?

TFS,
Rachel

[Martin Dunn]

Rachel,

here is the colour version

[Rachel Hollander]

Martin - Is this straight out of camera? The same issues are present in the color version though not as pronounced as the b&w.

Rachel

[Martin Dunn]

sorry Rachel, That was an image that had been worked on.
This is the RAW file converted to jpeg without any meddling.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Martin , cool relaxed pose of this big boy cooling off in the water.
OP looks a bit harsh, which obviously comes from processing m because the original out of cam looks just slightly overexposed, but can be recovered i think. My suggestion would be just to extract detail , if you do , in the subject and not in FG and BKG.
I would start from scratch, if this were mine.

TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Martin - I agree with Andreas and would start over. It looks like most of the issues were introduced during your pp. Here's a very quickly done b&w version that I did from the sooc and converted in PS with some levels and curves adjustments. Just to give you an idea.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Martin, the OP looks flat in tone where as the above RP gives the image tone & depth. I think the halo that appears along the ridge of the back is a masking issue and even visible in the thumbnail. Just watch the blue creeping in on the colour version.

TFS
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

A lot has been said, Martin. For me the image is tonally a bit flat. I don't like that the water is competing with the buffalo in the monochrome versions tonally, perhaps lighten the water a bit? Makes no sense to make a black buff lighter so it has to be dark and the point of the contrast. Rachel's RP is better in terms of tonal contrast and the "look" of the shadows (your OP had a look similar to overdoing shadow recovery in PS). I might have a crack at this on Sunday (heading out for the weekend).

[Marc Mol]

Not quite up to your usual high standard here Martin, apart from the above comments, the harsh shadow across the body doesn't fit a good B&W conv and dominates the image.