Lion cubs #2

[Glenn Pure]

Earlier in the year I posted another shot of these two cubs interacting. Anyway, this is another from the series. Taken in Etosha National Park, Namibia in May. I liked the early morning light in this. Crop is from the bottom left of the original and about three quarters of the frame area.

Thanks for looking and any comments you may have.

Technical: Canon 80D with Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/640, f7.1, ISO 640. A touch more DOF would have been good Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, Sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default luminance NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements. NR to background. Highlights on cubs reduced and midtone contrast added. Background darkened and contrast reduced a little to create more separation. Sharpened cubs only (sharpness function: remove Gaussian blur, radius = 0.4 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Glenn, a nice shot with good look at these young ones. Love those innocent eyes and good colours and light. TFS.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Glenn,

First of all I would like to thank you from the heart for your contribution here on BPN. As well as for your wonderful and such thoughtful comments always- much appreciated!

Lovely frame of those cuties, they look mischievous and ready to cause trouble... I call them "little punks" at this age The morning light was superb but those shadows must have made it a bit difficult to expose. Whites look good yet the blacks appear a bit strong, you think you can open them a bit?

Tempted to crop even closer if this were mine. The colours look good, Glenn. You could perhaps try and reduce the brightness of those grasses at the top, if you like. Agree with you on DoF but then you should have upped the ISO for more SS.

I sincerely hope to see more from you in the New Year. It has been a real pleasure, viewing your images and just sharing opinions on each other's work. My apologies for not contributing enough lately, this month I really struggled to participate as often as I usually do.
Wishing you a Happy New Year filled with success in everything, Glenn. As well as good health and happiness

Warmest regards,

[Glenn Pure]

Dear Glenn,

First of all I would like to thank you from the heart for your contribution here on BPN. As well as for your wonderful and such thoughtful comments always- much appreciated!

Lovely frame of those cuties, they look mischievous and ready to cause trouble... I call them "little punks" at this age The morning light was superb but those shadows must have made it a bit difficult to expose. Whites look good yet the blacks appear a bit strong, you think you can open them a bit?

Tempted to crop even closer if this were mine. The colours look good, Glenn. You could perhaps try and reduce the brightness of those grasses at the top, if you like. Agree with you on DoF but then you should have upped the ISO for more SS.

I sincerely hope to see more from you in the New Year. It has been a real pleasure, viewing your images and just sharing opinions on each other's work. My apologies for not contributing enough lately, this month I really struggled to participate as often as I usually do.
Wishing you a Happy New Year filled with success in everything, Glenn. As well as good health and happiness

Warmest regards,

Gabriela, thank you so much for your wishes and generous view on my contribution here. My contribution has been patchy lately due to Christmas, visitors and other projects. I have certainly found the wildlife forum to be a great little community that is willing to share frank and helpful critiques - which I value greatly as I'm here to learn. However, I am stuck in my ways on a few things. One is blacks on which you commented and I suspect Rachel would share your view based on comments of hers on other images. However, I don't mind a few 'blocked' blacks if they are parts of the subject or image where I'm not expecting to see detail. Just a preference of mine and I apologise for this foible of mine and for future cases that will no doubt arise. As for crop, I did try a tighter one from the left but didn't like it. Perhaps I should have played a bit more as I was thinking the same way when I worked on this. Take your point on the grass stems. I will aim for a repost (and hopefully won't get diverted before that) but will wait a little longer to see if there are other comments.

You have summed up this pair nicely as 'mischievous'. They certainly had that in mind.

All the best to you, Gabriela, for 2018. I hope that new camera arrives soon although you are doing fine work with your current gear and hard to see how you could improve on that. More importantly, I hope you are able to find more time (and a more cooperative internet connection) to enable you to share more of it.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - Two cuties in one frame. I like the morning light and you handled the mixed light fairly well. Yes, as you suspected I so agree that some of the blacks are borderline but I understand your position. For me though actually some of the HLs are more problematic. If it were mine I would probably crop a little more from the bottom to the chest of the cub on the left thereby removing that bit of the inner leg that is blown and draws the eye. Yes, a little more dof would have taken this up a notch but not a deal breaker. Glenn, your active participation and critiques have been a very welcome addition to the Wildlife Forum. I look forward to seeing more of your images in 2018.

TFS,
Rachel

[Glenn Pure]

Thanks Rachel. Taking account of your comments Rachel and Gabriela, I have redone the crop and played more with the lighting, including reducing the shadows a touch. Also toned down the bright grass. I think this is an improvement so thank you for your help and experience with this.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn, the RP is an improvement, but still feel it's too 'contrasty' in the Black to White creating a lot of HL's, was the Histogram clipped on the RHS. DoF I feel is OK as the heads look within the same plane of focus, but the SS I feel is too slow, as I guess the LH cub was still on the move. Prefer the crop in the RP.

TFS
Steve

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Glenn, the RP is an improvement, but still feel it's too 'contrasty' in the Black to White creating a lot of HL's, was the Histogram clipped on the RHS. DoF I feel is OK as the heads look within the same plane of focus, but the SS I feel is too slow, as I guess the LH cub was still on the move. Prefer the crop in the RP.

TFS
Steve

Thanks Steve. Take your point on contrast but it seems I either have my subjects too flat or too contrasty more than I'd like. Perhaps it's just too subjective an issue to have hangups about? As for the histogram, I virtually never look at it... I find it much more effective to view the highlight and shadow clipping warnings in PSE which not only shows me if there is clipping but where located. In this case, there is essentially none in the blacks and some in the whites but on individual hairs and I would say inconsequential. Having said that, I think some of the highlights could be toned down a bit more.

[Steve Kaluski]

As for the histogram, I virtually never look at it... I find it much more effective to view the highlight and shadow clipping warnings in PSE which not only shows me if there is clipping but where located.

Hi Glenn, the histogram is perhaps your 'Best' mate when out in the field, learning to read the Histogram will ensure a correctly exposed image, plus you will maximise the most amount of data in your capture creating more information from which to process you image. If you shoot blindly and blow the whites and or highlights you will have no data there just white patches and PSE will never recover the lost data. In addition, by compressing the Histogram via Levels to me you are only expanding the Contrast. I would strongly suggest you begin to shoot via the Histogram Glenn and with Highlight alert enabled not only should you get better files, but can then avoid any clipping whether in the Blacks or Whites. Yes, there are times where you simply cannot avoid clipping small highlights ie water splashes, but learning to Expose to the right ETTR is the way to go.

Reading a histogram and calibrating your monitor are two of the most important elements in the Digital process, both of which are required.

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Glenn, the histogram is perhaps your 'Best' mate when out in the field, learning to read the Histogram will ensure a correctly exposed image, plus you will maximise the most amount of data in your capture creating more information from which to process you image. If you shoot blindly and blow the whites and or highlights you will have no data there just white patches and PSE will never recover the lost data. In addition, by compressing the Histogram via Levels to me you are only expanding the Contrast. I would strongly suggest you begin to shoot via the Histogram Glenn and with Highlight alert enabled not only should you get better files, but can then avoid any clipping whether in the Blacks or Whites. Yes, there are times where you simply cannot avoid clipping small highlights ie water splashes, but learning to Expose to the right ETTR is the way to go.

Reading a histogram and calibrating your monitor are two of the most important elements in the Digital process, both of which are required.

Hi Steve, many thanks again for your help and your patience. You seem to have a lot going on at the moment so might not recall an email exchange we had early on about this, not long after I started posting to BPN - I do all you suggest except for the histogram which I frankly find misleading because it will not show clipped highlights in small but critical parts of the image, eg on parts of the subject that may be small but not show on the histogram because there are not many pixels affected. Instead, I use the 'blinkies' and find it a much more reliable way to spot a problem with clipping. As for monitor calibration, I agree it is critical. My problem is not so much calibration but having my computer and monitor in a room where I have limited control over the ambient lighting. I know I should be set up in a better way in that regard but it's simply not practical for me to do so at least in the short term. My solution is to review images at different times so I 'average' the result and get closer to a better rendition particularly tone. No ideal and apologies from me but I hope that helps clarify a little better.

[Steve Kaluski]

Fine Glenn, but I still feel you should give things another try and therefore if you do have time please read this article if you haven't already, it may help.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...exposure-right