My wife and I just came back from a 9-day trip to the Brazil Pantanal wet land looking for Jaguar. It was hard work cruising up and down the river looking for these elusive and magnificent cats. At the end, we saw 4 adults and 1 cub. The sightings were brief, only a few minutes before they disappeared back in the bush. At every sighting, a dozen boats jostling for position.
The Jaguar here are huge! Prey is plentiful and slow. The cats dine mostly on Cayman and Capybara. Every cat We saw ha belly as big as a beach ball.
The lighting was not so good and it was difficult shooting from a moving boat while trying to avoid being blocked by other boats. I'd like to post some images to get feedback on how to process them.
5D3
100-400 II @ 214mm
1/5000
f5.6
ISO-1600
Aperture priority
+1/3 EV exposure compensation
In DPP4,
Contrast -1.0
Highlight -1.0
Shadow +1.0
In PS
Used Curves to brighten the face
as you can see, light came from behind the cat at an angle and harsh.
Hope you enjoy seeing the Jaguar nevertheless.
Forgot to mention, the cat had a damaged right eye.
Hi Loi. I m happy for you to even get a sighting and here you have a clear shot with nice walking pose, that raised paw and the full belly really tell us how powerful and agile these predators are. Though the light was harsh and not in your favor you did well. Congrats on the sighting. Pl do share more.
Regards,
Sanjeev
Hi Loi- Welcome back and congrats on the sightings! I think you did well given the conditions. That is a very full belly! I like the walking pose and the inclusion of habitat. It might be easier to give pp suggestions if you make the RAW available. I did have a very short play with the image as you processed it and played with a luminosity mask at about 50% to tame the highlights and then opened up the mid and darker tones on the jaguar's body slightly. Just an idea of the direction you could go and lots of ways to accomplish the adjustments. Btw I would back off on the sharpening of the riverbank behind the jaguar.
Hi Loi, cool sighting and I like the location, plus the 'low' POV, was this with a guy called Nate, by chance?
Looking at the techs, even a walking Jaguar, plus shooting from a boat you could have eased back to say 1/2500, I think 1/5000 is a bit excessive I feel. Going plus a third obviously slowed the SS down a fraction, but again, I thought zero EV would have been fine, especially with the light. I do like the raised front paw, gapping mouth & curved 'follow me' tail, but he's full full cat judging by that bulging stomach.
Based on the OP, I would look at a CCW rotation, darken both the water & river bank with a filter in LR or PS where you can adjust other elements within that adjustment. The detail then comes through more adding depth & tone and the sharpening/detail looks fine. I think it gives the image a better look and the colour doesn't change compared to a luminosity adjustment, but your call. Blacks within the marking/rosettes are choked, easing back again on any input during PP will help. I would either fractional crop, or clone out that bit of twig on the RH frame edge.
If you have the time, then revisiting the RAW I think will provide dividends, as the image has a lot of potential.
Hi Loi what a wonderful sighting to see a Jaguar , a lot more special than his African/Asian cousin
So in the Pantanal it is like in Kruger park when a predator sighting is going to take place , not that good to hear .
Regarding the image i like the walking pose captured in a pleasing comp . Overall you did well with the harsh lighting . I would have gone even higher with the exp compensation to + 2/3 to open up the shadows ( for sure without blowing the HL much ) .
No CCWR needed from my POV as the feet do look level to me .
Agree with Rachel regarding the tones , she did quite well , i would go even further in the real HL.
BTW which picture style have you used for this one , my guess is you used "Standard " , try the new "Fine Detail " better starting point from my POV for high contrast scenes and a better one for all others , well this is my opinion .
Thank you everyone for good comments. I will try to answer the key points.
1. Steve, I normally shoot Manual, but on this trip I decided to try Aperture priority because I didn't have much control over the light angle. As you can see, even at +1/3 EV compensation, the subject is a bit dark since the light came from from the rear of the Jaguar. I think Andreas is right, a +2/3EV would have been better.
2. I'm totally comfortable with shooting at ISO-1600, so unless I need more DOF, it does not matter whether my SS is 1/2500 or 1/5000. Noise is just not an issue with the 5D3 or 1DX.
3. Steve, thanks for suggestion of using filter. I will give it a try.
4. on the cCWR, I left it as is as the Jaguar's feet are level.
5. Marc, this is about 70% of FF. I took a sliver of the top and bottom and 2X sliver of the right hand side.
Hi Loi -- You have handled the light very well ! The Jaguars are very handsome creatures and would love to see more from your trip. The River bank appears quite bright so that is one area where you can work upon .
Rachel ,Steve and Andreas , provided very good suggestions so thank you to them for their inputs . Thank you for this post as it initiated very good discussion.
What an impressive specimen - they sure are bulkier than their leopard cousins. I was wondering when your posts from Brazil would start showing up here...
Good points made already by all and sundry. I didn't realise these sightings were that busy!
Looking forward to the RP...
I went back to the RAW file and reworked in LR. It was a very bright sunny morning, so I'm OK with the river bank a bit bright. The key changes in the RP are
Exposure +0.25EV
Highlights -100
Black +30
and then in PS open up the mid tone on the jaguar using Curves.
I did a very slight CCWR.
I realized now my problem was with the Aperture Priority shooting mode against a very bright river bank. So even at +1/3 EV, the Jaguar was under exposed.
Hope you like it better and thank you very much for your helpful suggestions.
Hi Loi i guess LR or ACR was used , i would try to master DPP .
To me the RP is not the step into the right direction , does look flat to me and the colors do look washed out .
I would load rachelīs version and your latest into PS and watch side by side and think about it what you see . Well this is all very subjective for sure , just my 2 cents .
You can drop me the raw if you like and i will squeeze it through DPP and see what i can come up with .
Andreas, I think you are right about the latest RP to be too flat. But let me leave this image as is for a while. I'd like to post another frame prior with a different BG and exposure conditions and get your comments. Thank you. Loi
Andreas helped me figuring out that the focus was not on the Jaguar, but the river bank. Same reason Rachel asked about the sharpness of the river bank, so that is really the biggest issue. Let me look thru and find you a better image. Thank you much.