Etosha lion

[Glenn Pure]

I didn't think I had any backlit shots and almost missed this one completely. Based on the wrinkly forehead and lack of facial scars, I think this is one of the cubs I've posted shots of before. Something has caught this one's attention but I don't recall what. Unlike the cheetah backlit portrait I posted recently, this one has a much more strongly lit background so the shadow side of the cat is more 'inky' and the shot has quite a different feel. This is a fairly hard crop retaining only about 20% of the original pixels.

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 220mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/640, f7.1, ISO 640. 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. Lighting adjustments to animal and background selectively. Sharpened subject only (sharpness function: remove Gaussian blur, radius = 0.8 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - I like the concept and the comp but think the IQ has been adversely affected by the large crop. Unfortunately, it's more apparent at the new, larger posting size too. For lack of a better description, the hls in the bg and rim lighting look pixelated to me.

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Glenn,

I find backlit photography quite challenging as one needs to have good control of lighting as well as a clear idea of what the final product will look like. I do like the outline here, that lovely rim of light on the young lion's mane. And I find the background quite charming, albeit a tad bright in places. I gather the sun was quite harsh, what time of the day you took this?

Love the pose from the subject, I just feel that in terms of comp this would have worked better with the subject at some distance, a dark silhouette in a field of golden grasses. Just my thoughts. As it is, I keep looking at the lion and wish for more light on its face, it is a little underexposed and lacks fine detail (did you try spot metering?). The heavy crop brings him too close and the "mood" or "feel" I expect to find in this frame is somehow lost.

Glenn, thank you so much for sharing, this got me thinking, will see if I can tame the Kalahari sun next month and try a few backlit shots of my own

Hope you have a wonderful evening,

Kind regards,

[Glenn Pure]

Many thanks Rachel and Gabriela. I have gone deliberately dark on the animal in this one, partly to reflect the lighting situation. And for composition, there was too much other clutter in the wider view. I wanted to keep the visual elements simple: cat with intense stare and grassy background filled with light. As Steve might say, a 'marmite' shot.

Hi Glenn - I like the concept and the comp but think the IQ has been adversely affected by the large crop. Unfortunately, it's more apparent at the new, larger posting size too. For lack of a better description, the hls in the bg and rim lighting look pixelated to me.

TFS,
Rachel

Rachel, I'm not sure that what you are seeing is pixelation. The image has still be scaled down to get to this shot and pixelation is usually only apparent when upscaling (going from smaller pixel count to a larger pixel count) - which I would never do. It's possible that stronger than usual output sharpening has done this but I don't go very hard and would be surprised if that was it. As for the IQ suffering, is it only the pixelation that is the issue for you or are there other IQ issues? I personally can't see a problem with the IQ so would appreciate some pointers on what to look out for here.

[John Mack]

Cool lion, like the backlighting wish there was more room to the right.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn, I like the choice of colour palette here and the highlights in the grass provides a kind of etherial look & feel, and to a degree I like it. Any blown small highlights for me is an integral part going this route, as it's often hard to balance between both the Darks/Blacks & Whites, although using the Histogram will help to a degree. I also like the contrast of light between both subject & the environment. At this size it has held up reasonably well and I can't see any pixilation, but hard cropping is to be avoided at all times due to loss of IQ.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - What I am seeing is very (overly) sharp tiny points of light particularly in the lrc and in the rim light so that the hls look like a series of pinpoint hls, rather than a strand of fur. Btw if this is 20% of frame then it should be 1200px long from the 80D assuming you are using the largest raw settings. So to post at the bigger size there was upscaling.

Rachel

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Glenn - What I am seeing is very (overly) sharp tiny points of light particularly in the lrc and in the rim light so that the hls look like a series of pinpoint hls, rather than a strand of fur. Btw if this is 20% of frame then it should be 1200px long from the 80D assuming you are using the largest raw settings. So to post at the bigger size there was upscaling.

Rachel

Thanks for clarifying Rachel. I have a closer look at this but suspect it is simply a result of the lighting situation combined with artefacts introduced by downsizing and sharpening that are probably hard to avoid. For reference, I have appended a portion of the image at 1:1 (ie, no downsizing and no output sharpening).

As for the size, I think there may be confusion about what I mean when I said this is 20% of the frame (or the words I used: 20% of the original pixels). To explain, the final crop took this to 2744x1880 pixels = 5.2 megapixels from a 24 megapixel sensor. That is a bit over 20%. The posted size was 1400x959. So this is about a four-fold reduction in pixel count from the original crop. Perhaps you were thinking I had taken roughly 20% of the width and 20% of the height in my crop? In that case, I would be left with only 4% of the image pixels (0.2 x 0.2 = 0.04) and I definitely would have to upscale in that situation.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Glenn ...very nice overall . I do like the balance between light and dark , very much .
Well this how much of a crop thing ...... never understand it really, just followed some discussions in another forum and had a great laughter about the questions and answers over there. There seem to be no real trustable and fixed values ???!!!
Back to the image ...lovely tone and colors , apart from the fancy coloring about the blown HL in the grass BG. Looks like a typical DPP issue .
I do like the pose and the gaze of the lion itself, well seen and captured . Is it captured in Etosha ?

This does look way better in the shadow area than the Cheetah you posted , as this has a natural looking and not the HDR appearance as the other frame.

TFS Andreas

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Glenn ...very nice overall . I do like the balance between light and dark , very much .
Well this how much of a crop thing ...... never understand it really, just followed some discussions in another forum and had a great laughter about the questions and answers over there. There seem to be no real trustable and fixed values ???!!!
Back to the image ...lovely tone and colors , apart from the fancy coloring about the blown HL in the grass BG. Looks like a typical DPP issue .
I do like the pose and the gaze of the lion itself, well seen and captured . Is it captured in Etosha ?

This does look way better in the shadow area than the Cheetah you posted , as this has a natural looking and not the HDR appearance as the other frame.

TFS Andreas

Thanks Andreas. Yes, crop percentages can get confusing for all! I'm not sure what weird colour you are seeing in the highlight areas. And yes, it was taken in Etosha. As for a comparison with the cheetah, don't forget there was a fair bit of reflected light in the case of the cheetah and a background that was a lot less bright. Hence, the HDR look but the tones were not tweaked that much in the cheetah shot to achieve the result. Different lighting produces different results! I may post a Springbok shot shortly (depends how it looks when I review it again) which is 'mixed lighting'. There is a significant backlighting component but also a lot of reflected light. Again, simply the impact of lighting and not a result of odd processing but take a look if I happen to post it.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Glenn for demo i RP with some fancy markings .....the areas around the HL do have a fancy greenish coloring , from experience they do appear when the area was blown in capture and then recovered in post , i might be wrong just my impression .

Cheers Andreas

[Glenn Pure]

Got it now, thanks Andreas. I did see some of that in other parts and thought I'd dealt with it but obviously not.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Glenn ....no chance to avoid that , if the areas are blown they are lost . Other software is somehow a bit better to recover those areas and create more realistic colors .

[Glenn Pure]

Sure - simple enough to fix in PP - I just missed it!

[Andreas Liedmann]

I personally think it is sometimes a bit tricky to fix this , best is just simply to have this without dealing with it in PS . C1 does a better job in this case and LR , too .