Lazy morning

[Glenn Pure]

Not sure if I've made it in time for the August theme. It's the 1st of September here but still 31 August in the US. Please ignore 'Theme' if I'm too late. This shot was taken in Namadgi National Park just south-west of Canberra where I live. The species is Eastern Grey Kangaroo. While mum wasn't worried enough to be on her feet, they were giving our group a watchful eye all the same. I've lifted the shadow areas of the animals (lighten shadows) and done the reverse to the rest of the image. Also added some mid-tone contrast to the shadowed parts of the roos.

Thanks for taking the time to look and comment.

Technical: Canon 80D with Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/1600, f8, ISO 1600. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, Sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Very modest NR applied globally along with some slight sharpening (Neat Image option). Sharpened (sharpness, radius = 0.3 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.

[Ken Pollock]

Hi Glenn,

I really like the composition and the colors. It looks like the picture was taken mid-day and you handled he light well. You did a nice lifting the shadow. I might have added a little more room on the left side of the image. Well done.

Ken

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - You're in before the deadline . Looks like tough light and direction but you handled it well. Dof looks good to have both sharp. I agree that more room on the left would be preferable. Looking at the eyes and the bg, I think it needs some cw rotation but you don't have room to do so with the current crop.

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Glenn,

I am really enjoying your images:) And I have a wide smile on my face looking at those two Eastern Grey Kangaroos - the concerned looking mother and her curious little one made quite an impression on me.

Habitat and its colours just lovely. Nice techs and well exposed, good DoF, frame a little tight on the LHS (but not a big issue), good detail on those two cuties.

I am tempted to suggest less sharpening on the flowering grasses near the subjects, but let us see what the others say?

Thank you so much for sharing, I have never seen this species in real life and would love the opportunity to photograph one day

Kind regards,

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Glenn, good dose of cuteness factor here. I like the little one fully alert and the relaxed mom. Agree with more room to the left of mum as we see it. Light handled nicely.

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you Ken, Rachel, Gabriela and Sanjeev. I welcome your time, comments and encouragement. Yes, the light was difficult here and had doubts I'd even be able to salvage this at all. I probably used some licence when I said 'Lazy morning' - light was closer to middle of the day. Hope that doesn't disqualify me.

As for the crop, I understand the suggestion and why. Ideally I'd have more on the left but I wanted to keep the crop fairly tight and not have the joey too close to the edge of the frame. So this is a compromise.

Regarding rotation, I have already done some clockwise rotation mainly so the joey didn't look like it had a lean on it. Any more CW and I think it would look tilted to the right. Not much frame left to play with either.

I am tempted to suggest less sharpening on the flowering grasses near the subjects, but let us see what the others say?

Before I posted this, I did wonder about that detail but did nothing about it. I'll have another go and repost if I'm happy.

Thank you so much for sharing, I have never seen this species in real life and would love the opportunity to photograph one day

Easily done if you ever visit these parts (let me know if you do!). They are very common. I often have them down the end of my street on some open land next to a golf course - I live on the fringe of town so see more than average when it comes to kangaroos and birds.

[Glenn Pure]

OK, I've played with it some more to blur the in-focus vegetation in the foreground. Left crop as-is for reasons outlined. This version has a touch more contrast on the animals (mainly because I didn't make a note of exactly what adjustments I made last time so had to make it up again this time). Thanks again to you all...

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn, great to see a species from the 'Homeland'.

Like Rachel Bears, you just needed to move the whole frame to the left or use more of the image content, just too much dead space to the right even after the RP Glenn, it just looks unbalanced. If you want to keep the tight LHS then a 10x8 coming in from the right & top will work. I assume the light is behind them, so all the eyes are in shadow? I might just darken the FG a tad and get some more of that green to come through. I like the two together and their stance/position to one another.

TFS
Steve

[Glenn Pure]

Like Rachel Bears, you just needed to move the whole frame to the left or use more of the image content, just too much dead space to the right even after the RP Glenn, it just looks unbalanced. If you want to keep the tight LHS then a 10x8 coming in from the right & top will work. I assume the light is behind them, so all the eyes are in shadow? I might just darken the FG a tad and get some more of that green to come through. I like the two together and their stance/position to one another.

TFS
Steve

Thanks Steve, I agree the foreground might also benefit from darkening a little. I have played with the crop - moving the whole crop to the left or chopping off some of the right and leaving the left much the same results in the mother essentially being in the middle of the frame horizontally and the joey off near the edge. This revised crop doesn't look right to me. Another option might be to go wider but there isn't enough frame to to that successfully and I'm not sure I'd like it anyway. So kind of stuck on this one. But I do appreciate your insights here.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn, I think perhaps post the the FF image, in that way you/we may find a better solution????

However as per the OP and the tightness of the LHS this was where I was going... Am away so don't use the colour as a reference, only the crop.

Steve

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you again, Steve. Below is the uncropped, un-tilted frame (I added some CW rotation to the processed frame). To save time, I have not applied any of the selective lighting adjustments to this one - I've only posted it to help out with the framing discussion. I did try a crop very similar to the one you've posted Steve but didn't like it. It felt unbalanced to me and I think the reason is that the joey is 'sidelined' in that crop and the mum becomes the centre of attention. But maybe I've just looked at this too many times? Anyway, happy for any further ideas you may have but also comfortable if you want to move on and feel there's not much more to extract from this.