Posting an image from my Bandhavgarh trip a couple of years ago. This male Tiger is famously known as BAMERA and he is the son of Legendary B2 . Took this image when forest officials were searching him in order to check on his wounds suffered from a fight with another tiger. At that period of time he was still the ruler of Bandhavgarh but now he is just passing his days as he has lost his dominance and the area which he used to rule .
The location is a dense forest patch with flowing streams of water throughout the year , normally the lighting is quite low in the area no matter what time of the day it is . He snarled all of a sudden and was not prepared for the same. He is a huge male tiger and this almost a full frame shot.
Canon 1D MKIV, Canon 300mm f4 IS , SS 1/200,Av f 5.6, iso 800. Converted in DPP4 , CS5 : sharpening, levels,selective color ,curves,burned the shimmering leaves in the BKG . added the canvas in front of the paws as it was very tightly framed.
Looking forward for all the suggestions and comments !
Last edited by haseeb badar; 07-23-2015 at 01:37 PM.
Wow! Great image, Haseeb! What a intimidating attitude! Nice low angle....I feel like he is coming right at me! Well chosen DOF to keep the face sharp. The blown spots on the vegetation is a little distracting...but one's attention quickly returns to the tiger. You might consider removing the orange blobs to the left of the tiger's head or de-saturating them to match the surrounding area.
Hi Haseeb - Great look at the tiger and you captured the snarl even if you weren't ready for it. You got away with a slow ss. Because you already added canvas below I would add more as it is still tight. If there was time in the field going vertical as he advanced toward you probably would have been a better choice. As processed it looks like the image was heavily recovered in both the highlights and in the shadows which has affected overall IQ and colors. It can be tough to expose properly when dappled light is coming into a forest or shaded area. If you want to shoot me the raw file I can take a look and give it a try at pp.
Hi Haseeb, good to see you posting images again, thanks for input on the various threads too. BTW if you ever get a change to see the documentary Machli - 'Queen of the Tigers' well worth it. Colin was putting the finishing touches to the film when I was there, as were were always the first two vehicles to enter Ranthambore.
Always hard to shoot in these conditions, this is why you need to often do a test image every now and then to see how it looks (Histogram), as the light is so variable and having been there I can appreciate it. I feel you knew where he was so the emergence of him wasn't too much of a surprise and therefore tracking him with the camera may have helped albeit through the bushes, and so you could plan in advance as the vertical format I think would have been the favourable one here. The DoF I think was right, but your SS was just too low to capture the image, not sure how much taming of the highlights can be done, but the overall image looks light, compared to your description of the location and therefore perhaps they should be more muted??? As presented I would try perhaps a 10x8 working from the LHS and using the full height so there is less on the RHS. Just a quick RP from your posting, but hard to implement some changes it needs, but you could forward the Raw to Rachel?
@ Rachel - have sent u the raw file , looking fwd for the RP !
@ Steve - I will definitely find that film abt Machli, and i must admit vertical framing never occurred to me at that point of time , will keep that in mind for such tight situations . Still your RP looks better than the OP , I need to put more effort in Post Processing also apart from field work .
Hi Haseeb - So here's my reworking of the RAW. I sent you the tiff file through Dropbox and you should be able to see the adjustments that I made in ACR in the EXIF. I then took it into PS and applied selective levels and curves adjustments through layers, burned the highlights on the leaves and finally sharpened. Unfortunately the AF point was on the edge of the nose/whiskers so that critical sharpness is off. Here's a sharpened RP of the tiff I sent you. I did not add the canvas but you can do so. My adjustments were mostly about going a bit darker and richer than your op.
Nice work, Rachel. The image now conveys the forested area where the tiger was sighted. My only nit is I still find the orange area distracting, but that is just personal preference.
Thank u Rachel for the RP , looks much much better now , very nicely processed . will try to grasp as much as possible from the post processing point of view for future edits.
Apologies for coming in so late:) I looked at this frame a few times over, as well as spent some time viewing the RP's. I am not that familiar with the colours/appearance of tigers so not sure whether any of the versions above are "completely true to nature" but I feel that Rachel's RP is closest to what I had in mind when I saw the original. Steve's is also a great improvement, I just imagine the overall colours a bit richer and deeper, since you described the scene as happening under the dense canopy of trees.
I love the moment you captured here and this is one awesome tiger, in the same breath I so wish you upped that ISO for more SS. Easy to say as I am sitting here comfortably at my desk I know, but try in the future to at least manage a few frames at various settings, so that you have more choice when it comes to processing. And do watch that histogram, I have been doing so religiously for the past few years (thanks to Steve who had to remind me ever so often, LOL - thank you Steve) these days I have less frames to delete when I get home.
Superb expression from the tiger and I love the raised paw, as well as the other one, deeply sunk into the carpet of golden leaves. Mmm...I can almost hear the rustle as Bamera lunges forward, cannot remember what a tiger's growl sounds like as much as I wish to, still a vivid frame that moves my mind and excites my imagination, well done and TFS!
Hi Haseeb.
Nice expression here and a dream for me to spend time with them in the wild.
Some good suggestions received already, it was tough light to work with. Rachel's RP feels more natural to me, although the tones are a tad muted in her post...always hard to work from the JPG posted here.
Steve's note on shooting vertical is a good one...made the same mistake many times over. Thanks for your great contributions in critique on other threads!