Waterbuck portait

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

I wanted to highlight the eye detail with those flies, the texture of the skin and the veins on the face in this close-up shot. The 500 II & 5D III doing a great job in resolving the fine detail! I did not alter the (distracting?) foliage in front of the buck as I thought it added a bit of the environment they are found in.
1/1000
f/7.1
ISO 800

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

I love the dtail in this Sanjeev! The foliage is no problem at all as it's blurred well enough to be totally seperated from the animal. I might have coned out the free flying flies (specially those behind the ear) but it's not too serious as the flies are as much part of the scene as the buck. Nice one!

[BenBotha]

Not a waterbuck-female Kudu.
Ben

[Carl Walker]

Nice detail on this kudu cow Sanjeev. I am not sure if it is just me but it looks slightly crunchy in the neck area. And who am I, the busy background master, to comment on yours. For me the flies add to a realistic situation. TFS

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thanks for correcting me Ben! Appreciate all comments. Cheers.

[Morkel Erasmus]

I was just about to comment on the "species"
Nice detail and clarity and exposure for a tough lighting situation. The flies add, but the BG is a bit cluttered - understandable that this is their preferred environment. With her head turned sideways you could have easily shot at f4 or 4.5 and gotten more smoothness/blur to the BG and maintained enough DOF, IMHO...

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Sanjeev - I too was going to say that's a kudu not a waterbuck. Yes, the bg is a bit busy but that is the habitat we often see them in. I like the ear position and the flies do add to the image. I agree with Carl on it being a bit crunchy and oversharpened.

Ben - it would be great if you would also comment on the image and not just the species.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Sanjeev

Techs covered above. I have found that if I have the time and the subject permits, to begin shooting in the field with different f-stops to get varying DOF. By spinning that dial you might take up
disk space, but one can never recreate that moment. Just my bit forged by painful experience...

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Sanjeev i like the Waterbuck with short smooth fur and those larger ears .
Good side profile with the ears directed into different direction .Good handling of the light , nice tones and overall contrast . I mage looks a tiny bit too sharp , just back off and your good.
Colors do look a bit cool for my taste , not much you can do about the BG . Maybe negative clarity or my method ( inverted RGB composite treated with High Pass filter at 5 - 10 px radius ) gives better results than negative clarity in LR (at least for me ) , plus you can use a nice lump mask for targeted adjustments and not a plain brush like in LR .

TFS Andreas

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Sanjeev,

Thank you for this post, I enjoyed viewing and thought you handled the lighting conditions extremely well - I particularly like the pose from your subject (ears)! Lovely detail and the flies add to the content, if I were to nit-pick I would say I find the patch of green (leaves) a bit more bothersome than the branches.

A fine portrait of this lovely Kudu female, well done!

Kind regards,