Caught mid-chew

[Glenn Pure]

An image I thought I might use in last month's horned animal competition but never got to it. So you get it this month! Taken at the end of the day in poor light so I'm pushing my luck with the techs - the detail has suffered but I think works fine at smaller sizes. I liked the mouth full of greens, soft light, surroundings and pose here which I why I persisted with it. Taken in Timbavati Private Game Reserve, Kruger area, South Africa. Virtually full frame: just a bit off the right of the frame.

As always, I greatly appreciate any comments you may care to provide.

Technical: Canon 80D with Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/60, f6.3, 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. Very modest NR applied to animal along with sharpening and stronger NR to background. A bit more USM applied to face and lighting to enhance contrast on the animal Sharpened animal only (sharpness function: remove Gaussian blur, radius = 0.34pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.

[William Dickson]

Looking good Glenn. I think you got the DOF spot on, showing great IQ on the face. I really like the facial expression and the grass in the mouth adds so much. The BG fits well. No nits from me.

Will

[John Mack]

This is great love all that grass in the mouth. Nice detail and very sharp for 1/60sec.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Glenn at least at this size it does look quite good ...
I do like the head turn to the viewer , color and tones looking quite nice and you have the subject well separated from the BG .The grass sticking out of the mouth is a nice addition ....
You could try a bit more tonal depth across the whole range ion the subject .....but treat the tones separately ....

Nice dagga boy ...TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - I like the humorous expression on the face of the buff and the mouth full of grass adds to it. No one else has mentioned it but some of the hls on the boss/horns and on the grass are clipped/hot. I would tame them and try to bring out more detail particularly on the boss. I would also darken the one brighter leaf between the horn and the ear on the right. Good advice from Andreas too.

TFS,
Rachel

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like it Glenn, the shots demands attention and the grass in the mouth is a useful addition. Glen you know your kit better than I but was the NR really necessary on the buffalo, I sense a slight loss of detail in the right ear for example. The more I look at the horns the more I would be inclined to pull down the highlights, and also likewise the grass in the mouth.

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you Will, John, Andreas, Rachel and Jon - always appreciate fresh set of eyes and comments from those more experienced. On the question of tonal range on the buffalo, I think the suggestions is for a bit more variation and contrast. I looked at this when I processed and pushed this quite a bit as the original was quite flat due to the lighting conditions and perhaps a little from the higher ISO. I convinced myself that having a good range of tones on the head but not the rest of the animal might help focus attention there. Will have another look though and see what I can extract and repost if I'm happy with the result. As for the 'hot' highlights, there are a few but I deliberately ignored these as I didn't feel that were an issue visually (I sometimes ignore problems like that, especially in clipped shadows).

Glen you know your kit better than I but was the NR really necessary on the buffalo, I sense a slight loss of detail in the right ear for example. The more I look at the horns the more I would be inclined to pull down the highlights, and also likewise the grass in the mouth.

Thanks for that Jon. The NR has had no noticeable effect on detail on the animal, especially at the size posted here. Perhaps I need a bit more output sharpening? NR certainly helps keep the file size and jpg compression minimal when posting here which is mainly why I do it. I would never apply NR in a way that noticeably affected detail on my subject.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn a classic pose and the grass in the mouth is a cool touch. For me I feel you needed more DoF so the horns are sharp and the SS too low, but the eyes appear sharp. Hard to tell on the laptop, but maybe some exposure adjustment on the crown of the horn may help, but would not advise on adding any more perceptual sharpening as the high/low frequency may start to class more.

TFS
Steve

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Glenn,

I absolutely dig the look on this buffalo's face Well captured and great timing, framing is perfect IMO, nice BG too.

Agree with Steve, not enough SS and DoF but you did best you could under the circumstances. Curious how far you can push the Canon 80D in terms of ISO?

Love the detail on the eyes, boss, also on those wet hairs (bridge of the nose). Nose itself looks a bit over sharpened. Those eyes really make the image for me, great eye contact and superb expression. Makes one think twice before getting too close to those dagga boys, they are not to be reckoned with

Thank you so much for sharing, and so glad to see you had such nice sightings in the Timbavati - hope you come back for more

Kind regards,