A fully grown wild boar swimming across a small pond with great gusto on a windy afternoon.
EOS 7D, 500mm, f/4, 1/1600, ISO 250, evaluative metering, spot focus, curves, brightness, sharpening in PS CC2017, A little bit of straightening & marginal crop of around 10-15%.
Shot outside Protected area, the animal was far too close for comfort. Its a naturally very aggressive no holds barred kind of species. SO a valuable shot for me, being at such close quarters to it.
All Critique & comments most welcome.
Abhijit, interesting perspective to get this in the water. I don't know if they do that all the time but it seems nicely 'different' to me. The image as presented is quite small and not sure why you have posted that size. Overall, it looks a bit inky and flat to me. I suspect some selective contrast and lightening on the boar would help lift this one - and a larger image so some of that detail can be seen.
Hi Glenn,
Thanks for your words.
I did make a mistake in the sizing. I apologise for that.
I am attaching the appropriate size. Like i said i don't know PS well. So i can admit unabashedly that i don't know how to handle contrast locally. Can you please enlighten me?
Regards
Abhijit
Hi Abhijit. I'll leave a detailed reply to those who use Photoshop. I use a cutdown version: Photoshop Elements so do things a little differently. In general though, what you need to do is make a selection around the hog, apply some feathering to soften the edge then make your lighting adjustments just to the selection. In both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements you can do this as a one-off or you can save the actual adjustment in a layer (by creating an Adjustment Layer). If you save the file with this layer, it means you can go back and fine tune the adjustment later without having to redo it. A great time saver and what a lot of experienced users do, I believe.
You might want to have a look online at the excellent tuitorials provided by Adobe on their products and have a look at the relevant ones on this subject. But as mentioned, I'll leave it to the full photoshop users to comment further on this.
Hi Abhijit - I didn't know wild boars swim either so a very interesting behavior image. I like the strong reflection too. Overall the image is very dark and a bit flat. I took the image into PS and did a couple of quick adjustments. I set the white point at 245 in a levels adjustment not worried about the hls in the splash and then I did a curves adjustment to the boar and reflection opening up the midtones a bit which brought out a lot more detail. All in less than 3 minutes just to give you a quick idea of the direction to go in.
Hi Rachel,
Thanks for enlightening me. Will try out myself as well. Lets see if i can manage a bit of what you have done here. The result is pretty good!
Indeed these Wild boars don't do much of this kinda swimming. But i can tell you they are very efficient & powerful swimmers.
Thanks & regards
Abhijit
Hi Abhijit, a fun image & I myself have never seen one swimming in the jungles of India. Rachel has addressed the key issues here and her RP is a good one. Thanks for sharing this unique image.
Hi Sanjeev,
Indeed, as you say, this is something i have never seen myself inside or outside protected areas in Indian forests. Being on foot, so close to this fellow was a thrilling & frightening experience. I found the critique spot on as well.
Thanks for stopping by & looking in.
Abhijit
Here is a reprocessed image. I did a selection over the boar, adjusted the curves to bring out the details, did a selective vibrance & sat adjustment for the boar & the BG separately. Then sharpened using smart sharpen. Is it any good Rachel Hollander? I hope it is better than before
Hi Doc -- Very interesting behaviour and a first time for me also ! Rachel's RP has sorted some key issues with the image especially it was quite dark which was my initial thought. Those finer details are lacking here , i might have gone for more DOF and increased tht iso ( there is a lot of scope ). A bit more high ss would have helped matters further. But all in all a very interesting image. TFS !
Hi Abhijit - for me the rp is better. Be careful with the saturation and vibrance adjustments, a little goes a long way. I'm a strong believer that less is more when it comes to pp. Getting it right in camera is the most important thing and the development of the image with pp is much easier.
Stick around here and you should learn tons from everyone.
Dear Abhijit,
A most interesting behavioural frame indeed! I like that snout above the water, reflection, and of course the splash. Good framing. RP much better and seems sharper too, well done
Just my thoughts, try experiment a little more with camera settings when "out there" and see what happens. I would have gone for a higher ISO value in this situation, and also more DoF. SS not bad, but maybe 1/2000s or more would have been safer because of movement. Like you said, this animal is a powerful swimmer and probably quite fast as well, best to freeze the action.
Very pleased to see you posting again and excited to see you progress so quickly, thank you so much for sharing
Hi Gabriela,
Thanks for your words. I was on a 7D body that time. Not a very good performer beyond ISO 800. NR kills the sharpness. But point taken as far as the SS is concerned. Thanks again. Will be posting a few soon
Regards
Abhijit
Wild Boar
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Can you please enlighten me?
