Hi all have not posted an infight for some time .
So here you go with the two Wildebeest going into clinch , but was more a playing rather than a fight . I guess they have been bored bit by waiting for the heat to disappear , so many of them gathered under or around a tree at Craig Lockhart WH in KTP . So if you are bored ...... you try to make the time less boring by playing .
Canon EOS 1Dx
EF 200-400 IS L at 400 mm
i guess this was HH , was shot through passenger window .
F 8 ; Iso 1600; 1/1250sec
Processed with DPP 4 and PS CC ; double processed cause image was underexposed way too much . Cropped for comp to have more cleaner edges .
Thanks for looking and leaving a comment to my previous posting
Hi Andreas, like the horns locked into the neck of each animal, the twisted, contorted heads, as it conveys the duelling/sparring battle that is going on. The kneeling position is pretty cool, likewise the angle you achieved from the vehicle, you really feel you are there, right in the thick of it. Good call on double processing, although from what I can see, I might suggest a bit more sharpening on the visible head, not sure if the FP was slightly off, or it may have pick up/locked onto another expansion point, subject to how you set it up? The mane is just showing some signs of PP probably due to the backlit???
FP point was right behind the eye or better said between the eye and the ear , i will take a closer look if i need to add a tad more sharpening. Yeah had FP expansion on so it could be that the focus locked somewhere . As this was way underexposed i was also very careful with my LCE adjustment , used no LCE on this one cause i wanted that flat shadow look the subjects.
The artifacts in the mane come from blurring the mask while blending the two exposures , tried without blurring but that looked too flat to me.
Andreas - the closer you get to those two, the more punch the image has! I think the colours are superb, very accurate, the wild look there from the wildebeest is just priceless - you know how much I like those images...
I did some work on mine at some stage but left them unfinished and stored them in my "PSD file", did not quite know what to do with that backlighting without employing more "drastic" measures. I think you've done extremely well under the circumstances, I am considering converting mine into B/W. Love the textures here, that horn about to penetrate skin - awesome scene, whew, I so want to go back there and sit at a waterhole for hours, heat and all.
I can never have enough of those fighting wildebeests, do post more if you have! And thank you so much for your contribution in Story Sequences - something different than what we see from you every day, but just as exciting
Thanks, I thought it was on one of the necks, perhaps if you had cranked up the AF auto switching then with the Exp points too, it may have locked onto the nearest FP, you could check in DPP.
Hi Andreas - Another nice interaction image though I think I prefer the ones with both heads visible. Nice low pov and interesting about the double processing with luminosity masks. I also read the thread about DPP vs. ACR and saw you mention it there too. Before reading any of the comments I also noticed that the manes, longer hairs at the top seemed to have artifacts or lack the quality of the rest of the image. If you can't fix in pp perhaps cropping even closer to the top of the horn will help.
Hi folks thanks for your kind comments , much appreciated .
Rachel and steve i looked back at the raw and it was not just the blurring that causes the effect for whatever reason .
The RP contains the cropped raw just down sampled , as shot with just DPP capture sharpening applied .