Her Highness - Maya

[Sadananda Koppalkar]

Her highness- Maya
The beauty of sighting a tiger when drizzling is out of the world experience. It was our last safari in Tadoba and I had least expectation to see the stripes. Was lucky enough to sight her with her hypnotizing roar and heading straight towards our Jeep after marking the territory. She is a 4 year old tigress (called Maya) of Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve located in Maharashtra (India).

Critics and suggestions most welcome.

EXIF data : Nikon D7000, Nikon 200-400 f/4, SS 1/160S, FL: 400mm, ISO640, Av : f/4.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sandanda, a cracking image and one we rarely get to see these days. Love the posture, open mouth and the slight curvature of the tip of the tail, a gorgeous specimen in prime condition thats for sure. I also like the head on walking/stalking with the slight raised front paw. Techs look good and I also like the slight detail in the front foliage, although I not so keen about the darker patches in the BKG slightly distracting, but nothing you could do though.

Not ideal as I'm using the laptop so I could be off a bit, but to me the image does have a slight cast to it and the blacks a we bit heavy, backing off slightly and just refining the WB I think does help, however you can then selectively adjust things if the richness starts to drop from the Tiger via a selective adjustment & mask, but it's the whites that look better and the eyes, WDYT? Perhaps running a little NR in the BKG also helps.
Great to see these magnificent animals again, please don't take long to post more.

TFS
Steve

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Awesome image, any sighting of a tiger is always exciting and you did well in the given situation. Nice head-on pose with the raised paw. Great eye contact as well. Steve has given some great tips and its worth taking this image up a notch. TFS.
Sanjeev

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Sadananda - It's always nice to see a tiger and Steve is correct that we have not had many posted recently. Great head on pose, the slightly open mouth and intensity of the eyes really add to it. Steve has given you a good direction to take this image up another notch.

TFS,
Rachel

[Loi Nguyen]

Great image in good light and sharpness. The tiger really pops against the BG. Steve's RP took care of the color cast. Congrats. Loi

[Sadananda Koppalkar]

Thanks for the suggestions and comments ...very encouraging As Steve suggested the PP image of Steve's looks amazing ...The whites look stunning.. thanks a lot Steve .. There are more images which I shall share here :)

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sadananda, everything I did with the adjustments were done in LR or if you have it, PS.

Please do share and show more of this amazing animal, their value is worth more alive than on a wall and to be privileged to see/photograph them is priceless experience!

[Nancy Bell]

Absolutely fabulous image!! Love the head-on view, open mouth, raised paw, soft green vegetation that is low and does not interfere with the tiger. If you do not want to have that dark bkgd vegetation I think cropping it away would result in a strong image. I have visited Tadoba and had several nice tiger sightings, but none like this. Well done!

[Steve Canuel]

Nice to see one of these roaming the forum again. I like the clean view and vertical format. Steve's repost removes the slight greenish cast I was seeing in the whites. Perfect level of sharpness for my taste.

[Sadananda Koppalkar]

Thanks to every one for critics and comments... I feel blessed to be a part of such wonderful community.
Steve I shall share a PP Image which includes your suggestion in the evening today it will be interesting to see how well I can do from RAW Image. You may have to excuse me though as I am a beginner in PP.
Nancy, nice to know that you visited here .. Tadoba offers one of the best sightings of tigers in India .... getting these royals in greens is always mesmerizing

[Steve Kaluski]

You may have to excuse me though as I am a beginner in PP.

Don't forget Sadanada, we have all been there, we just have a few more years under our belt . Sanjeev is a great testimony in embracing the advice and putting into practice what he has learnt here, just keep things simple and don't rush things, but the key bit of advice I would say is, just ask if you are unclear or need help.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hey Sadananda - great image for sure, a dream for me to see one in living flesh someday soon (before it's too late).
Steve has improved the colour balance and tonal depth of your original post. Please do post more!
Would be great to have your feedback on the posts of others too.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Sadananda , always great to see a tiger shot and most of the times special .
I like the head on walking pose , kind of classical we all like to have .The curled up tail is a nice touch up .
Good suggestion by Steve regarding blacks , and color .

TFS Andreas

[Sadananda Koppalkar]

Thanks you everyone for critics and comments.
I have attached the pic which is PPed based on the Steve's suggestion..

[Gabriela Plesea]

More tigers please, Sadananda! Stunning capture with lovely vivid colours and what beautiful pose! Great point of view and I like the framing. Great advice/RP from Steve.

Looking forward to more images from you, well done!!!

Kind regards,

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sananada, as I always ask, how do you feel with your RP, is it better compared to your OP?

If it has improved and you have been able to progress and hopefully all feedback has helped I'm pleased. As I delete as soon as I RP I can only toggle between the two, OP & my RP, however I think you have lost some of the detail, sharpness & clarity you had in the OP, it might be that you have not applied any, or enough USM, just look at the face and left ear as viewed, you have less detail in your last posting. It's a credit to you to go back and translate things back into the image, the original capture is good, I think now it's just refining things to really pull out that last 10% within a great/lovely image.

cheers
Steve

[Sadananda Koppalkar]

Thanks Gabriela.
Hi Steve thanks for feedback. I felt that sharpness problem when I uploaded but recently I have started using mac and I have Capture NX software when I tried to scale down the image by pixel there was softness. In windows I used to do with paint but in mac it also asks for pixel density and I am not able to manage it. Now I could process this image with paint to scale the pic.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sadananda, I will be back today so I can have a better view, however this looks so much better.

From your description of scaling/cropping I have not hear about 'paint to scale', however I guess this is part of the NX software. If you us PS let me know, as there maybe a better way. If so, drop me a PM and we can perhaps take this further off line rather, than clogging the thread.

Lovely.

Steve