Results 1 to 14 of 14

Thread: Massive Male Lion

  1. #1
    BPN Member Mark Needham's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Corvallis, Oregon, USA
    Posts
    252
    Threads
    11
    Thank You Posts

    Default Massive Male Lion

    Attached Images Attached Images
     
    Greetings Everyone --

    New member here, but I know several people on this forum and I am really looking forward to the interactions and making new friends. Here is my first post and I hope I do it correctly. Please don't hold back on comments and feedback; I have a thick skin and need all the help I can get.

    Image:

    Wild male lion and easily the largest male lion I have ever seen with his mane extending down onto his belly!
    Little Kwara Camp, Okavango Delta, Botswana.
    March 2014.
    Early morning with low light (hence the high ISO) and the animal was wet from the overnight rain and moisture on the grass (can really see the moisture, especially on his mane).

    Equipment:

    Canon 5D Mark III camera.
    Canon 500 f4 Mark II lens.
    f4.0, 1/250, ISO 2500.
    manual mode with auto ISO, evaluative metering.
    spot focus near eye.
    Jobu Jr. gimbal on Manfrotto superclamp attached to safari vehicle.

    Post processing:

    Lightroom 5.6: basic global adjustments and slight crop.
    Nik Viveza: targeted adjustments.
    Nik Color Efex: white neutralizer, tonal contrast, vignette blur (very minor).
    Nik Dfine: noise reduction.
    Photoshop CS6: selective color enhancement, resized, USM (run twice) for web, converted to sRGB.
    edited on a color calibrated NEC P241W monitor.

    Thanks for looking and providing feedback / advice and hope everyone has a great week!

    -- Cheers, Mark.

  2. #2
    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    NYC
    Posts
    14,320
    Threads
    929
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Hi Mark - Welcome to BPN and the Wildlife Forum! Great first post. I agree with you that he is a massive male with a dark, full mane. The comp works really well. You've got nice detail. The sharpening is bordering on the edge of being too much in places. It's always a balancing act with wet fur/hair which can tend to look crunchy faster. I'm not a fan of the vignette and blur. I'd love to see the image without it. Finally, if it were mine I would reduce the blues.

    Don't hesitate to jump right in and give your thoughts on other images. We recommend commenting on at least 3-5 other wildlife images each time you post your own wildlife image. It's the best way to get the most out of BPN and helps foster a sense of community.

    TFS,
    Rachel

  3. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  4. #3
    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Somewhere in the world
    Posts
    20,551
    Threads
    1,285
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Hi Mark & a warm welcome, a nice opening image of an impressive male.

    Personally I might go for more of a 'traditional' format, (vertical, to add more space at the foot at least) rather than square, for me it kind of boxes in the subject, but you will find/see it can be very subjective. The main subject looks very noisy, especially in the mane, have you lightened this, as I would be surprised if it's the techs. I would also reduce heavily the purple & magenta coming through, a trait of Canon, plus it does look a little cool. I just took a mid grey reading and it looks well balance albeit the WB went up a fraction, but then just adjusting the Tint slider a fraction more to the right improves things overall IMHO. I like the posture & look and even to a point the soft vignetting as for me it's in keeping with the light, wispy grasses.

    Unless you are wedded to it, I would keep away from Auto ISO, plus if it was me, I would try to keep a lot of things like NR within your LR adjustments and park the NIK stuff, but that's just through personal choice.

    TFS
    Steve

  5. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  6. #4
    BPN Member Morkel Erasmus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    14,858
    Threads
    1,235
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    GREAT to see you here my friend!
    Lovely first post, I won't add much to what my fellow mods have said above - though I do see some magenta coming through in the mane (which may be due to the laptop I am viewing on so will take a fresh look on the home system tonight). Good writeup of your processing steps, I should take a cue .

    I concur with Steve - I mostly shoot on daylight WB, although I never had issues with coolness on my Canon cameras when shooting AWB, all depends on the available light and time of day of course.

    I like the framing here, though a tad more space at the foot won't hurt - certainly not a detractor for me from the impact of the image.

    I'm surprised Steve didn't bring it up - but it would be nice if you could either move your watermark to the corners or reduce the opacity a bit as it's a bit distracting on first view (I understand why you do it of course, we just tend to bring it up from time to time as proper critique is contingent on maximum viewing pleasure of the subject ).

    I'm looking forward to interacting with you on the forum, and I'm sure you'll learn a lot here.
    Morkel Erasmus

    WEBSITE


  7. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  8. #5
    BPN Member Andreas Liedmann's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Dortmund / Germany
    Posts
    10,906
    Threads
    1,196
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Hi Mark,
    i also would like to welcome you here to the wildlife forum , a great place to share image /knowledge with others .
    I agree with the big guys , as this is a nice opener to start .

    I would echo the comments by the others regarding color/noise issues . I personally like the crop , but think a bit more room on the foot would be slightly looking better .Not a big fan of vignettes, but that is personal preference .

    Happy participating in here .

    TFS Andreas
    The lion itself looks great , what a posture ........
    I personally have no problem with working in Auto Iso , and see no disadvantage .But hey we all work differently and there is not THE way in capture and processing .

  9. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  10. #6
    BPN Member Morkel Erasmus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    14,858
    Threads
    1,235
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Attached Images Attached Images
     
    Just got home and viewed this on my calibratd monitor.
    In this repost, I desaturated the magenta, cyan and blue channels overall by about 20-40 points each globally. I then selected the lion, ran a 15% warming filter on it and adjusted the color balance to further remove the magenta and blues in the lion. I composited the OP and my reworked image to show the difference. What do you think, Mark?
    Morkel Erasmus

    WEBSITE


  11. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  12. #7
    Forum Participant
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Russellville, Arkansas
    Posts
    5,189
    Threads
    674
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Morkel, this is hugely helpful to me to see the before & after. My choice is the after version.

    In addition to that absolutely magnificent lion, I really like those wispy grasses surrounding the animal. They create a beautiful framing effect by emphasizing the contrast of massive animal vs delicate grasses and strong coloration vs paleness. I would consider moving your name, etc. to a less conspicuous place.

  13. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  14. #8
    Forum Participant
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Hyderabad, India
    Posts
    5,088
    Threads
    1,356
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Hi Mark, Lovely first post. Welcome to the forum. Nicely frame, good angle, very good details. Morkel's RP and PP has really taken this up few notches. TFS.
    Sanjeev

  15. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  16. #9
    BPN Member Mark Needham's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Corvallis, Oregon, USA
    Posts
    252
    Threads
    11
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Attached Images Attached Images
     
    Hi Everyone --

    WOW - you folks rock! Thank you so much for your help. This forum is so much better than most other sites, such as 500px, where it is mainly a popularity contest and all people want are likes. I really appreciate your constructive feedback; it will help me improve and learn. Also, seeing the side-by-side from Morkel really helped me to "see" the issues in my original. I will also chime in on some other people's posts and offer feedback to help "give back" to the wonderful sense of community on here.

    Here is a revised version based on all of your comments and here is what I did:

    - changed crop to open more space on the bottom and slightly more on the top to balance it out.
    - quite heavily reduced saturation (and dropped a bit of hue and a bit of luminescence) on purple, magenta, blue, cyan.
    - also slightly toned down the greens (they were a bit too harsh in the earlier version and drew my eye away from the lion).
    - bumped up both the temp and tint a tiny bit to the right to warm slightly.
    - changed highlights and shadow settings to avoid overly brightening / exposing noise in the black mane (although most of the "crunchy" look in the lion's mane is because it is soaking wet and clumping the fur).
    - a bit more noise reduction on the mane without noticeably losing sharpness.
    - deleted vignette blur in Color Efex (the 500mm lens and f4.0 DOF already does this anyway, especially now with the wider crop).
    - deleted tonal contrast in Color Efex and replaced with slight amount of detail extractor (6%) - my goal here is to really show the black mane of this lion, but also to pull out a bit of detail in the mane to emphasize dimensionality (I went too far in the earlier version with pulling out too many of the shadows and boosting tonal contrast too high, so hope this version looks better and more like what I saw on the day).

    I also agree about the auto ISO thing. Since I took this shot earlier this year, I have been working directly with Chas Glatzer who has me shooting a completely different way - full manual with spot metering and shooting more "to the right." I put this into practice on a recent trip to Lake Clark (grizzly bears) and the results were superior to my previous shooting technique - many more "keepers."

    So, is this revision on track? Anything obvious that I missed?

    Thanks again - you rock!

  17. #10
    Forum Participant
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    1,298
    Threads
    112
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Beautiful image Mark! Your last RP works for me except that the shadows in the mane (in the chest area) is too dark, me thinketh - your OP handled that side better. I must admit I like the affect Morkel introduced with the warming filter so it's something to consider (perhaps something inbetween?). Keep'em coming!

  18. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  19. #11
    Forum Participant edwardselfe's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Location
    South Luangwa, Zambia
    Posts
    701
    Threads
    26
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Yes Mark - nice first image. Morkel's colours and tones with your final crop and you're onto a winner I think. Look forward to seeing more.
    Ed

  20. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  21. #12
    Lifetime Member Marc Mol's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Somewhere else in the World
    Posts
    4,797
    Threads
    708
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Attached Images Attached Images
     
    Welcome to BPN Mark, with a fine first up posting.

    All good points and advice by members above,
    but I think this image is crying out for a monochrome conversion, here without the RAW to play with just used B&W slider adj in PS, with a very slight warm tone.

    Just a thought.

    Let me know what you think.


  22. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post
  23. #13
    BPN Member Mark Needham's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Corvallis, Oregon, USA
    Posts
    252
    Threads
    11
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Hi Marc -- Yes, I agree and intended to do a mono conversion with sepia / warm tone as well as the color version. Your version looks great, so that will help when I work up the RAW file - thanks very much for taking the time! Once I get it worked up, I will post here. -- Cheers!

  24. #14
    Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator Gabriela Plesea's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    7,738
    Threads
    455
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Welcome Mark!

    A bit late to comment, but wanted to say "well done" capturing this majestic lion, impressive size and mane and really a fellow not to be messed with!

    I like what you did with the RP, gone are the colour casts and I can see some nice detail in that lovely black mane I do not mind the vignette blur, it is quite discreet and I have used it in a similar fashion before, to conceal/soften some unwanted vegetation. In terms of using Nik software, I have been warned to stay away but still used it because some members had a degree of success in terms of bringing out detail (and also because I am generally naughty and like to do the opposite of what I am told sometimes). I now hardly ever use it, I find it adds a certain "crunchiness" to the image where applied, so these days as try to do as little as possible and hope to get away with it.

    I like the warmth you brought in the RP and it's great you had some space for the lion to look into, I just feel a tad more space on the bottom would have been great but not a big issue. Not much left for me to comment and I do not wish to repeat what has already been said, I am happy to see the amount of work you put into the RP and the result is great, so well done on this one, I love your enthusiasm, by the way!
    Have fun processing, I so look forward to your next image
    Gabriela Plesea

  25. Thanks Mark Needham thanked for this post

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Web Analytics