Zebra scuffle

[Thinus Schoeman]

Hi, I got hammered a bit (in a good way of course) when I posted the elephant image a few weeks ago. Well I'm back to have another go.
On our recent visit to the Kruger National Park, I spent a lot of time late afternoons at the Mooiplaas waterhole near Mopani camp in the northern parts of the Park.
The waterhole is visited by a variety of game, and especially the zebras were regular visitors. The zebras often got involved in scuffles, and I managed to capture this image of two zebras kicking up dust while being less than friendly with each other. The image was taken late afternoon and I was shooting a bit against the light that was left.

I edited the image in LR5. The image was cropped a bit on the right hand side as well as the top.
The adjustment brush was used to selectively reduce the clarity on the background from about halfway up.
I upped the exposure, contrast and clarity, and lifted the shadows. I upped the saturation a tad, but I didn't adjust anything to the colours.
I applied sharpening after resizing, and applied noise reduction.

Thanks for looking, and all critique and comments welcome!

[Thinus Schoeman]

I neglected to add the Exif data, my apologies.
Camera Model Canon EOS 70D
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv(Shutter Speed) 1/2000
Av(Aperture Value) 5.6
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation +1/3
ISO Speed 800
Lens EF400mm f/5.6L USM
AF Mode AI Servo AF

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Thinus great looking scuffle with the two zebras in front, sadly the one in the back is kind of disturbing .Not much you can do .
The colors are a bit too red for my eyes and you have blue creeping through in the blacks . The contrast is a boot low and the whole image a tad too light. You can push the blacks in levels to get a decent black point , there was a gap in your OP on LHS of the histogram.
Having all said this it is very subjective about the colors , just my thoughts.

For illustration a RP , just very quickly done.

TFS Andreas

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hey Thinus- love the action, poses and dust here. You did well against the light, doesn't look like it at all.
Andreas' repost takes it where I was going to take it - removing the red cast and the blue tint overall.
As is - I wish the zebra furthest back had a little more of his head peeking out on the left, in a perfect world

A bit off-topic but FYI:
You know that Kruger is revisiting their waterhole policy and will probably remove all or most of the man-made waterholes, particularly in the north. Mooiplaas is probably on the chopping block. Main reason is that the north is a stronghold for rare antelope with fickle diets and health like roan and sable and tsessebe and eland. Once man-made waterholes were introduced, other grazers like zebra and wildebeest started moving in in the north and decimating the specialised diets of these rare antelopes, and also competing with them at water sources. They also brought more lions with them, who also feed on the rare antelopes and brought their numbers down. The removal of artificial waterpoints is said to induce traditional migratory patterns again between south and north and re-establish grazing that would sustain animals in drought (grazing that is now eaten the whole year because water is there for drinking the whole year). It'll be interesting to see how this changes the dynamic in the years to come...

[Nancy Bell]

Great capture of the action, especially seeing the heads of the 2 fighting zebras and one with his mouth trying to bite! I like what Andreas did with the repost. It makes it much more dramatic. You did a good job selectively reducing the clarity in the bkgd.

[vishaljadhav]

lovely image of the zebras , i think the treatment of Andreas makes it stand out and the dust rising makes it more dramatic
i love the way both are seeing towards you, rare to get it that way
nice one

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Thinus, love the action and the dust. My initial reaction on the red cast and the black have been addressed by Andreas. Loi


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

The others had said it all so I'm just going to add "Nice action shot well captured, Thinus"!

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Thinus,

I viewed this image with great pleasure, not only because I like it very much( I really DO!), but it also reminds me in a nice way that we are off to the Kruger in about two weeks' time!
Love the action captured and the dust, the warm colours, Andreas's version makes the subjects stand out and I like the contrasty look - enjoyed viewing this image, thank you for this post

Kind regards,

[edwardselfe]

I would like a combination of OP and RP. I would like to add contrast to Thinus's image, but keep the red tones of the original. I like the warmth and 'life' in Thinus's original image more than in Andreas's.
Ed

[Arthur Morris]

Great timing and action. The open mouth is wonderful. The original is a tad too light and too yellow. Andreas' repost is better but too dark overall from where I sit. So Edward Selfe was correct when he wrote: I would like a combination of OP and RP.

ps: if your personal ethics are OK with it I would remove the clod of earth lower right center.

[Arthur Morris]

Great timing and action. The open mouth is wonderful. The original is a tad too light and too yellow. Andreas' repost is better but too dark overall from where I sit. So Edward Selfe was correct when he wrote: I would like a combination of OP and RP.