An indian wild dog on an early summer morning in Pench national park ( famed for Mowgli & the Jungle Book by Kipling), poses for the camera at close quarters.
Canon EOS 5D4, Canon 500 mm, f/4.5,1/250, ISO 640, Manual exposure, evaluative metering, handheld.
Have adjusted the curves a little, added some sharpening & cropped out the hind quarter of another member of the same species. All comments & critique is welcome.
Hi Abhijit, nice to see this subject again, it's been a very long time since one of these was posted.
The POV is OK, but the subjected needed to be more to the right within the frame with more space on the LHS rather than the right. The dead tree branch is rather unfortunate, having all the legs & feet visible would have been better and a bit more image content below, i.e. move the whole frame down a bit. DoF needed to be around f/7.1 with a much faster SS, minimum 1/1600 so upping the ISO, no problem with the 5D4. Colour looks OK, but you need to check your settings for 'Save for web' as the image has an untagged colour profile, you need an sRGB embedded colour profile for all web & projected images to ensure no colour shift. I think the image also would benefit with a bit more localised sharpening on the head.
Hello Steve,
Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for the detailed critique. I will incorporate it in. As for the frame a few more unfortunate things about it being that on the left hand there is space but there is the hind quarters of another individual, more of an eyesore. Didn't have the luxury to change framing in the field. The dead branch is unfortunate for sure. Being my first outing with the 5D4 & being a timid soul i was afraid to jack up the ISO, so your point is valid. But i learned quickly & next trip upped my game!! Will sharpen the head. & most importantly your input about the sRGB colour space is most vital. Enlightening i would say.
Thanks for showing me the way & teaching me something new today
Regards
Abhijit
Hi Abhijit, thanks for the feedback, most helpful.
As for the frame a few more unfortunate things about it being that on the left hand there is space but there is the hind quarters of another individual
In which case I would crop a bit tighter here. Cropping large amounts is not ideal as you loose IQ, but you should be good here, try always to add in the intro if it's FF or cropped and if so, roughly how much.
Being my first outing with the 5D4 & being a timid soul i was afraid to jack up the ISO, so your point is valid.
Learn to use your Histogram and ETTR (Expose to the right) but shooting ISO1600, 3200, 6400 is no longer an issue, just get the exposure right with ETTR and have faith in your kit. Having a good SS will avoid soft images, better to have an image with a hint of noise than a soft image.
Hi Abhijit and welcome to BPN and the Wildlife Forum! A nice first post and good to see a species that as Steve said has not been posted that often. Steve has covered the critique well and his rp is an improvement.
BPN is a great place to improve your photography both in the field and in post processing as well as to become friends with and learn from photographers all over the world. The best and fastest way to do that is to become a part of the community by actively participating often through posting your own images and commenting on other people's images. I see that you jumped right in with comments and that's great. We recommend commenting on 3-5 other wildlife images each time you post one of your own. Your comments don't have to be technical in nature. Just tell us what you like and/or don't like about an image.
Abhijit, this is a lovely frame of this dog and has a lot going for even though there are a few issue already pointed out by Steve. He has covered all the key issues and I can't really add much. Thanks for your post and look forward to seeing more.
Hi Doc -- Great to see you here at BPN, and hope you are doing fine ! A lovely subject indeed and some nice suggestions especially by Steve. I have benefitted a lot by upping the iso and in the process gaining more ss wherever possible. The bottom of the image is unfortunate as being to tight and also some more space on the right hand side would have been even better. Would like to see more from you and also your suggestions on other images as well .
Hi Haseeb,
Congrats first up for the Image of the year 2016. Big one. Keep it going.
As for BPN, happy to be here, already learning a lot. I live ur suggestions. Will also be posting on as many images as i can. Thanks again.
Hi Abhijit, also from my side a warm welcome to BPN and the special Wildlife forum .
Indeed a nice opener with a species that is not very often posted here .....
Steve has summed it up well i think in terms of constructive critique , and i do agree with his thoughts .
Keep the images coming from your country as they are a bit underrepresented from my POV .
Thanks Andreas for your words.
I will be posting more of such photos of species from India which i too feel are not often posted on tis wonderful forum. Thanks again
Abhijit