Spotted Hyena cubs

[Glenn Pure]

A nice cute shot of some hyena cubs, taken soon after dawn. There were 9 cubs in total and 3 of different ages are shown in this shot. Luckily we were camped only a few minutes drive from this den so could get to them before they went into the den for the day. I like the curled under feet of the cub looking towards me. BTW, I never realised until visiting Africa that hyenas are more closely related to cats than dogs - hence, cubs not pups. For this shot, I've tilted the frame as the ground was sloping down to the left and it looked odd if I left it as per real life. A small piece of grass just overlapping the left cub's foot has been cloned out, otherwise, unfiddled. Crop is almost full frame. Location, Savute, Botswana.

Technical: Canon 80D with EF 100-400 (MkII) at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/60 sec, f7.1, ISO 1250. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Modest NR applied. Sharpened after final size reduction.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn, nice encounter and yes they do look cute at this stage.

Firstly check you WF, as the file has no embedded colour profile (sRGB) which may mean the image not be displayed at it's best.

As it's cropped I feel it's a bit too tight at the foot as presented, so if you have it, then moving the whole crop down a fraction and then increasing the framing below will help. I would look to adding some saturation say 20+, brings out some nice warmth to the image. At 1/60 the posting looks sharp (albeit perceptual), however good skillset at that low SS.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - Welcome back! I particularly like the different sizes and litters represented. Definite cuteness factor in the cubs. Yes, I too remember learning that they more closely related to cats and the young are cubs. I agree with Steve's critique. Looking forward to seeing more images from your trip.

TFS,
Rachel

[Douglas Bolt]

Nice triangle points of interest and great eye contact. Nice image.

[Glenn Pure]

Steve, Rachel and Doug, thank you for your comments and suggestions. I have reposted below with Steve's suggestions. A few points here:
1. Missing sRGB profile. I have had this problem before for images I've save for BPN and think I have now (finally?) fixed it. Please let me know if it's still a problem. Note that the original post was in sRGB but simply was missing the tag to say this. For browser display, it should make no difference according to the information I've found. See, for example, this site which is consistent with other explanations I've seen. I agree though that a tag should be added and hopefully this is now done.
https://om4.com.au/client/preparing-...rgb-adobe-rgb/
2. Extending crop at bottom: unfortunately, tilting the original frame left me with nothing at the bottom. I've done a small canvas extension but getting a convincing clone to fill this was a little harder but I don't think it looks too bad.
3. I've boosted saturation a little but am usually a bit wary of doing this. I agree it can make a shot look more punchy but suspect it's like adding salt to food, the more you use, the more you need it? I was fairly happy with the look of the original colour-wise.
4. Slow shutter speed. The original was fairly sharp and could withstand considerable enlargement beyond what I've posted here. Main issue with DoF. The cub on the right was sharpest. Also motion blur is more an issue at this speed. Again, I'm saved not so much by technique (in spite of your kind words, Steve), but by the wonder of image stabilisers in modern lenses and having fairly docile subjects.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - The rp does have a sRGB profile so looks like you sorted it out. My understanding is that images need to be in sRGB to display properly and consistently across web browsers. The article you linked to seems to say that as well. The room below is better but be careful of repetition in the added canvas. I see some obvious repetition near the lower left corner and to a lesser extent on the right.

Rachel

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Rachel, thanks for the additional post and for checking the profile information is now there - glad to see I've fixed that. However, what the article says along with other information I've found differs a little from what you've said. An image needs to be in sRGB colour space to display properly in web browsers but the metadata recording the colour space is not needed in the file since browsers will assume sRGB has been used to create the file - in fact, I think they will even ignore ICC profile information if it is different to sRGB (but I'm less certain about that).

To clarify a little further, my understanding of colour spaces like sRGB is that the RGB values for the file are actually altered for each colour space so that they will display as intended on the output device (in our case, a web browser on your screen). So long as the file has the RGB values set for display in the sRGB colour space, the actual metadata that records the name and details of the colour space is redundant. It is, however, needed when assumptions can't be made about the colour space that was used in a particular file - for example when opening a file in an image editor. Happy to stand corrected on this but that's my understanding of this somewhat difficult subject. Perhaps further posts on this should be taken to the tech forum?

Thanks again.

[Steve Kaluski]

I've boosted saturation a little but am usually a bit wary of doing this. I agree it can make a shot look more punchy but suspect it's like adding salt to food, the more you use, the more you need it? I was fairly happy with the look of the original colour-wise.

Hi Glenn, personally I like the RP, but that's a personal POV because it has some warmth and richness, compared to the OP, but I still very much like the capture. I do however agree that using adjustments like Saturation needs to be applied with a light hand and that with any adjustment it may, totally change the direction of an image. Glad you got the sRGB issue sorted.

[Mike Poole]

Nice work here Glenn, cute factor in overload! Whilst the low shutter speed here isn't to be recommended, its worked out on this occasion. Great expressions from all 3 subjects, and the sidelight here has added some nice tones to the image.

Mike

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely shot really like the repost. My only suggestion would be to consider not using the the digital lens optimiser. The colours and performance of that particular lens are pretty good, if you look carefully at the effects of the optimiser one is a significant increase in noise.

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you all for looking and commenting.

Lovely shot really like the repost. My only suggestion would be to consider not using the the digital lens optimiser. The colours and performance of that particular lens are pretty good, if you look carefully at the effects of the optimiser one is a significant increase in noise.

For Jonathan, regarding use of DLO, NR and general approach to processing, I'll post to the 'Digital Photography Workflow' forum hopefully in the next day or so to cover this and a number of other issues raised by others in various posts I've made recently. It's debatable whether DLO or NR was needed at all in this case, particularly for a heavily downsized image as required for posting to BPN. I suspect I'd even get away with applying DLO and no NR in this case too. But I'm fairly confident the image has benefited rather than suffered from DLO and NR here particularly as I use NR very modestly and Neat Image, if you're not familiar with it, is a wonderfully sophisticated tool and remarkably good at retaining detail while treating noise - it's light years ahead of bog standard NR tools provided in Photoshop etc. I have created camera and ISO specific profiles for Neat Image so I can get the absolute most out of it's capabilities while minimising any impact on image detail.

[John Mack]

Nice view of these cubs like the low and and the diffused light.

[Giovanni Frescura]

very nice shoot and composition .The right baby seeing the mother is the top