Two giraffes

[Glenn Pure]

I have quite a few giraffe shots from Africa in May and hope to share a few more before the month is out and the 'horned' theme closes. I like the counter poses of the two (male) animals against the typical dry, open plain in this one. It was taken in Etosha in Namibia - a truly wonderful park for wildlife and definitely a highlight of our trip to Africa. This is almost full frame vertically with a little taken off either side for composition.

Technical: Canon 80D with Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/3200, f7.1, ISO 800. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, Sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements. Lighting adjustments to animals including midtone contrast boost. Modest Neat Image NR applied to animals and stronger to background. Sharpened giraffes only (sharpness function: remove Gaussian blur, radius = 0.4 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - A nice behavioral image. Were they necking? Looks like the light was already a bit strong but you handled it well. I would still give the giraffes a slight boost. I would prefer a bit more room below and if the you have the full trees on the side then I would add that back rather than clipping them. Looking forward to seeing more of your giraffe images.

TFS,
Rachel

[Abhijit Deshpande]

Wonderful image.
Makes me feel the breeze gently caressing your face when you shot this.
I feel the colour tones could be richer, looks a bit dull as it is to me. But we do see things differently.
Thanks again for this nice image of the gentle breeze.
Regards
Abhijit

[Mike Poole]

Difficult for me to comment decisively on the colours as i've never been on safari, but my firs thought was the tones looked a little thin. That said, I do like the interaction and the central placement in the frame works well with the pose given by the giraffes

Mike

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you Rachel, Abhijit and Mike. I think I'm being pulled in different directions on tone with this one as I think you are suggesting a little lightening/shadow lifting on the giraffes, Rachel while Abhijit and Mike are suggesting a bit more richness and density? BTW, I don't remember exactly what they were doing but we did see lots of necking at various times. Coming back to the tones on the animals, the original was very thin and flat. I have boosted the contrast and variation in tone quite a lot - to the point where I wouldn't like to do a lot more. I did wonder about lifting shadows a little more but on balance was fairly happy with this as presented. As for composition, I could also see this as wide, thin pano but I don't have the width to pull that off. If I'd zoomed back a little, I could have made that shot work though.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - No we were all suggesting the same thing. For me a midtone boost is giving more depth and contrast to the midtones (pulling down on the curve adjustment).If I feel the midtones are too heavy then I suggest "opening up" the midtones.

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Glenn - No we were all suggesting the same thing. For me a midtone boost is giving more depth and contrast to the midtones (pulling down on the curve adjustment).If I feel the midtones are too heavy then I suggest "opening up" the midtones.

Thanks for clarifying, Rachel. I'm going to leave this one where it is as I think it will start to misrepresent what I saw if I go much further with the midtones in spite of the consensus so far on this. For those who are unfamiliar with giraffes, the tones can vary a vast amount from animal to animal. We saw some very dark animals and some at the other extreme. These ones were somewhere around the middle, 'classic' looking giraffes.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Glenn -- very nicely framed and timed to get the symmetry. Nice setting as well, gives a lovely savannah feel to the whole image. I agree with the above suggestion regarding more depth and also a bit more space at the foot and on the rhs and lhs for a more wider feel. Very nicely done .

TFS !

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn, love the concept here.

The SS on this is a bit much, perhaps 1/2500 max and upped the DoF a fraction say f/9 but no big deal. The light looks contrasty and the Blacks/Contrast look a bit hefty creating that 'swing' between light & darks. I wouldn't say just adding any Midtone is the only answer, there is more that needs to be done and I'm always wary of adding Contrast as it kills detail IMHO, but reading your reply you seem happy as presented so fine.

TFS
Steve

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Glenn, love the concept here.

The SS on this is a bit much, perhaps 1/2500 max and upped the DoF a fraction say f/9 but no big deal. The light looks contrasty and the Blacks/Contrast look a bit hefty creating that 'swing' between light & darks. I wouldn't say just adding any Midtone is the only answer, there is more that needs to be done and I'm always wary of adding Contrast as it kills detail IMHO, but reading your reply you seem happy as presented so fine.

TFS
Steve

Fair points Steve. I wasn't too worried about DOF at that range so wasn't worried by the higher SS. Not sure how much more foreground and background f9 would have brought into focus but I didn't want a lot of that sharp. As for tonal adjustments, I still have a way to go with this - assuming I ever get there! Thanks for your patience in that regard.