Marmot in rain

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hey folks ,
tried to emphasize the rain streaks with my settings .Wished for a more rain with hindsight .
Alpine marmot from Filzmoos .

Canon EOS 1Dx II
EF 500 IS L II
HH

F 8 ; 1/100 sec ; Iso 1000

Well i should have gone for F11 for more DOF , plenty of available Iso left .

Processed with DPP 4.6 and PS CC 2017, slight crop

Thanks for watching and commenting to my previous posting

Cheers Andreas

[Glenn Pure]

Nice frame, Andreas. I note your point about DOF but I think this shot works with the DOF as presented. The critical eye and head detail is in sharp focus and I quite like the rest fading into softness - just my personal preference. It took me two looks to notice the rain (I didn't pay attention to the title so wasn't looking for it). Background looks great to me including the rain streaks. Light was obviously nice and soft with resultant good catchlight in the eye. As usual, I can't fault your handling of tone and colour. I feel the composition could be revisited though. I think this would work better as a tighter crop but I know you were trying to get those rain streaks in. Still a lovely frame.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andreas, funny the image reminds of a good friend so it gave a good chuckle this morning.

To me the IQ is bit off compared to previous postings at higher ISO. I quite like the portrait, but for me I feel you have better, however the rain adds atmosphere.

Well i should have gone for F11 for more DOF, plenty of available Iso left.

If you use 1/125 SS or slower then you will increasingly elongate the raindrops. Keep the shutter speed below 1/125th to create elongated rain drops and above 1/250th to start to freeze them.

Never use above f/5.6 and try to shoot with at least 500mm, f/5.6 will allow the closest raindrops to stand out from the background. If you set f11 then all of the raindrops will be swallowed up by the background and again the effect will be lost. So keep your focal lengths long and you apertures small!!!

TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Glenn and Steve much appreciate your feedback .
Glenn - i would have gone tighter for a pure portrait , but as you say then i would have lost some rainy streaks.
Steve - why is the IQ off ? It could be ....as i used a slow SS for the rainy streaks in combo with the 500.But thank you for the pointer on the DOF , will try that on Helgoland with the seals in december .I agree i do might have better ones .....

Cheers Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Steve - why is the IQ off ?

Looks a tad soft.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Interesting shot I like the pose. I was surprised at your choice of shutter speed but having read your reasoning I understand your objective, yes for the rain I would have gone slower and I would have gone faster for the details in the animal - maybe blend two images?

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Jon for your feedback , much appreciated .

Just wondering how i could manage your suggestion ......technically no problem i think , with a stuffed marmot . I do not see a practical way to make this possible with a living marmot, at least i do not see away .
But i am open to suggestions how to get this done .

Cheers Andreas

[Andreas Liedmann]

Steve i will take a look if some more sharpening might help , i was very conservative with this one .

[Steve Kaluski]

yes for the rain I would have gone slower and I would have gone faster for the details in the animal - maybe blend two images?

I'm intrigued too Jon, what happens if the subject should move???

[Jonathan Ashton]

Obviously easier said than done but I would not have thought impossible with some careful masking and blending ?? No???

[Andreas Liedmann]

Jon if one would do it your way ... you would have rain drops in front of the subject and rain streaks in the FG and BG .... i think that would look somehow odd ?
But the biggest problem would be the blending of the two versions ....as the subject will for sure move while you change the settings ....at least chances are very high .

[Jonathan Ashton]

I would have taken one when he had gone and a fast one then blended, does it really matter if you don’t see blur on the marmot

[Andreas Liedmann]

Jon i do not see a way how to keep all the fine hairs along the edge of the subject .

Just try it ....

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Andreas,

...and Steve and Jon and Glenn

Followed above conversation with much interest because of my attempts in the past to capture lions in the rain. Every time I thought I was about to get it right the subject moved ever so slightly and ruined my shot Andreas, do you really see a problem with having rain drops in front of the subject as well? I personally think this could make things more interesting.

Anyway, I like this a lot. Happy with the framing. Indeed a pity the rain drops are a bit faint and at first I thought they were spider webs. Marmot is really cute and I like the visible teeth there and coarse looking wet fur. Tonality is superb (you seem to always get that right, nice job Boetie!). I did not think of this as "soft" until Steve mentioned it, curious what you can achieve with a tad more sharpening so please be so kind to share when you do so. And let us have some more images, please

Wishing you a lovely week-end,

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gabriela, thanks so much for your ever so kind comments , so charming .
Regarding the rain drops / streaks .....well i would have loved to have even more of that rain , for more streaks . But when it started to rain heavier ....the marmots disappear into their burrows .
I will try next time as i said with the seals in dec, and see how i can do .
You got me maybe wrong with the rain in front of the subject , i just asked how would that look if you have frozen ( by fast SS ) drops in front of the subject and soft ( by slow SS ) streaks in the surroundings , when blending the two images together ? For me this will not work . Sometimes we need to make compromises , and i think i have done quite well in terms of sharpness at 1/100 sec with that big white glass .

Thanks again and i do wish you a great week end , too

Cheers Andreas

[Gabriela Plesea]

I see what you mean Andreas and you're absolutely right - thank you

[Glenn Pure]

Interesting discussion. I'll bet if you took a few frames, you'd get one without visible raindrops in front of the marmot. I also think it would be possible to blend two images using a layer mask with a soft edge (just outside the edge of the fur). But I wouldn't know for sure unless I tried. That's assuming, of course, that combining two images like this isn't a bridge too far ethically. I don't think I'd be comfortable with it myself.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hey Glenn and Jon ....i can send you the RAW , just for exercise .
Try to create a cut out of the marmot , just from the BG !! And keep for sure all the fine hairs including the whiskers .

[Glenn Pure]

I understand your point Andreas. I've actually done this before with bird photos: selecting around the 'friz' on the edge of a bird is almost as hard. Either way, I don't think a perfect selection is needed as long as the selection includes all of the fur then a little of the background being included is fine. Especially with an oof background like this, provided the second shot has the same exposure and is framed the same or similar, blending with a soft edged layer mask shouldn't be very difficult.

Here's a shot where I blended two images - a separate one for the background and the bird using a layer mask. However, in this case, they were two versions of the same image one with a different WB on the background and I used a hard edged layer mask to avoid any weird colour halo - this is a more challenging combination. Note, this image was the subject of an extensive discussion on the 'Eager to Learn' forum not so long ago - and Steve was the one who put me on to the idea of combining a different WB background (but didn't suggest a layer mask - that was my idea based on things I'd tried in the past).