I have not seen many Bushbuck images in the Wildlife Forum so decided to share one. It is a bit of an experiment in terms of processing and I look forward to your critique and suggestions.
Image was taken recently in the Kruger Park at one of the camping sites. I was busy offloading my gear when I saw the subject grazing nearby. She was quite skittish so I sat still until she got used to my presence, then grabbed a couple of shots... I never let an opportunity pass by
Must say the original looked quite lovely but there were some problems: the bright patch in the BG is in fact blue sky and the darker area is a large tree trunk - all too too contrasty and rather difficult to deal with, still thinking about processing the colour version but not sure I'll be happy with the results.
About 40% of the frame was removed by cropping, I also changed the angle slightly and flipped frame horizontally. Converted to B/W in LR and made a number of adjustments then moved the image to PSCC for final tweaks.
I could not do anything about the dark shadow on the subject's back, hope this is not a big issue to you. Those HL on the nose I personally do not mind, could soften them but I quite like the effect.
Techs as follows:
Nikon D5
Nikon 500mm F4
ISO 800
F8
SS 1/1000s
Hope you all have a great rest of the week. And many thanks for viewing and your thoughts on my previous images, I truly appreciate it.
Nice result from the processing. Good DOF just enough to get most of the head sharp fading towards the ears. I like the licking of the lips.
The big dark ear shadow draws my attention.
Gabriela, nice image for B&W. Love the eye contact, expression and the tounge. It is hard to see in the final image how much PP it has received. So well done. For me the image works quite well as presented. As others have commented, taming the rather dark shadow of the ear may get eyes to focus more on the tongue and the eyes of the subject.
I agree with you about the shadow but it looked quite awkward when I tried to soften it so decided to leave it alone.
Quite a bit of PP work has gone into this. Must admit, at first I was just playing around to see what can be achieved. Then got some ideas, got carried away with PP and eventually came up with this version. When it comes to colour images I usually have an idea more or less of where I should be going with processing. Unfortunately it his not always the case with my B/W images:)
Really appreciate your comments and suggestions. Ummm...I might show you the colour version at some stage
Hi Gabriela, I really like this, not only for the reason Dumay mention, but the B/W has depth, contrast & tone giving a really 'gritty' image. OK, light might be a tad harsh creating some deeper shadows, or perhaps it's in the PP, but things like the shadow on the back can be addressed. I'm not sure if blowing in some black to fill the white portion on the LHS helps or not? I've lifted the shadow on the back, not via exp, but you have to watch for any noise, the hi res will obviously be better than a 256 image.
Many thanks Steve, I really appreciate your time to view and especially the RP Really tempted to have another look at this image and maybe process a colour version too, then I might ask you nicely for some advice regarding BG I like what you did here and notice you removed the light patch next to the subject's face, it does makes a difference and hmmm...not sure why I did not think of it:)
And thank you too Sanjeev, such kind words, very glad to hear from you
Lovely portrait, my first thought was the same as Steve regarding the white patch on the BG. It'll be interesting to see the colour version, but with the harsh light I think the B/W might have been the best option here
Thank you so much Mike, will try show you the colour version as soon as I get to process it.
Apologies for late reply, been unable to participate here lately. This is due to a number of events that kept me away from the computer screen, will be back soon
Young Bushbuck Female
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Really tempted to have another look at this image and maybe process a colour version too, then I might ask you nicely for some advice regarding BG
