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Thread: Leopard, Greater Kruger

  1. #1
    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    Default Leopard, Greater Kruger

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    I photographed this splendid male leopard in the Sabie Sands Game Reserve earlier this year. The weather was slightly overcast, so I used a tiny bit of flash to brighten the image. The high ISO and shutter was to be ready in case the action erupted, as he was stalking some impala.

    Camera Model: NIKON D850
    Date/Time: 2022:06:15
    Shutter speed: 1/2000 sec
    Aperture: 6.3
    Exposure mode: Manual
    Flash: On
    Metering mode: Multi-segment
    ISO: 3200
    Lens: 300.0 mm f/2.8

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    BPN Member Andreas Liedmann's Avatar
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    Hi Chris ... a fine shot of this guy , i really like the shoulder look .
    Composition is working well as does the relatively smooth BG , giving a good separation from the subject .
    Personally not a fan of fill flash , albeit you have done a good job with it .... might have lost some " form " within the subject due to the flat light that a flash produces . Might be just me .... and NOT a big deal .
    Overall color and tones looking nice , would reduce the cyans /blues that are quite obvious in the lighter tones of the subject .
    Image does look quite noisy for my taste , easy fix with the right piece of software .

    Nice one and TFS Andreas
    Last edited by Andreas Liedmann; 12-31-2022 at 10:09 AM.

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    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    Hi Andreas, thanks for viewing the image and the suggestions, which are all good ones👍

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    Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator Gabriela Plesea's Avatar
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    Hello Chris,

    Great to see you sharing an image here in the Wildlife Forum, this is a beautiful male leopard in such great condition and I love the pose!

    Yes to a bit of noise reduction as suggested above, and reducing the blue/cyan in the whites would benefit this image tremendously.

    Detail and sharpness look good, I like the framing a lot and especially the way the subject looks back - super timing!

    Would love to see more from you

    Kind regards,
    Gabriela Plesea

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    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    Hi Gabriela

    Nice to be sharing images again and thanks for the viewing and comments🙂

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    BPN Member Andreas Liedmann's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris van Rooyen View Post

    Nice to be sharing images again and thanks for the viewing and comments
    Hi Chris ... good to hear your thoughts , but it is not a one way route
    It would be nice if you could share your thoughts about postings of other members , keeping the forum and exchange alive .
    If i recall correctly , forum rules are asking to comment to 5 postings of other members when posting yourself .

    Just a thought

    Cheers and HNY

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    Macro and Flora Moderator Jonathan Ashton's Avatar
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    Super shot, I like the pose very much, other than already mentioned I cannot offer much critique. The two things that immediately spring to mind after a a beautiful composition and subject are noise and colour balance.

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    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    Thanks for viewing Jonathan, I appreciate your input👍

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    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Andreas Liedmann View Post
    Hi Chris ... good to hear your thoughts , but it is not a one way route
    It would be nice if you could share your thoughts about postings of other members , keeping the forum and exchange alive .
    If i recall correctly , forum rules are asking to comment to 5 postings of other members when posting yourself .

    Just a thought

    Cheers and HNY
    🙂👍noted

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Hi Chris,

    Andreas has covered things well, especially the Blue cast, noise and most importantly replying to other postings as it builds on the community and others can also learn too.

    Personally I'm not a big lover of the subject being truncated, either crop in or zoom out, just personal choice. I find the colours a bit on the saturated side, so everything has the same values so to speak and so the subject clashes. As light falls away, I would be tempted to slightly desaturate the BKG colours and pop some more mid tone into the subject, thus creating some layering. F/6.3 looks a bit on the cusp, is the nose sharp hard to tell.

    3200 isn't high for the 850, but I question if the exposure was spot on, I think it was under hence the amount of noise, but also how much of a crop, you don't say, but with a 300 I feel you must have been quite close???

    With some simple tweaks the image would be transformed and be elevated.

    TFS
    Steve
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    Hi Steve

    Thanks for the suggestions👍 I think the repost is an improvement? Zero crop, exposure was slightly under.

  13. #12
    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Better Chris, personally there needs more difference, but the blue is still visible.

    Why do you use two Raw converters and PS, DXO ok, but then Lr, bizarre as you don't get the full potential as I assume you use DXO for raw, but then the file is exported as a 16bit tiff to Lr?????
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    Hi Steve

    I'm not sure I understand the question, maybe just my lack of technical knowledge. The DXO plugin converts the RAW to a DNG file in LR, which I process further in LR, then add the finishing touches in PS and save it as a TIF. Maybe bizarre but it works for me

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Thanks for the explanation Chris, but Lr opens Nikon D850 direct, therefore no need to use DXO, let alone convert to DNG. I know in the early days, (well almost a year) with the Z9 the only way to access the file was to convert to DNG, but with updates conversion is just a wasted stage. Just curious as so many folk try to do everything either in the Raw converter without PS, or use DXO because of limited skill in converting the raw file, then PS.
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    OK I see what you mean. I use DXO because I find that it handles the noise reduction much better than LR.

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    OK, if I read correctly what you are saying Chris, you apply NR as the first stage via DXO. If so then this is incorrect, when you apply any NR then it’s done at the stage where all RAW adjustments have been made prior to export to PS.

    If you start in DXO and apply NR does it as you say, it creates a DNG which you import then into Lr???

    Apologies for all the questions, just interested, but also here to help.
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    IOTY Winner 2008 Chris van Rooyen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Kaluski View Post
    OK, if I read correctly what you are saying Chris, you apply NR as the first stage via DXO. If so then this is incorrect, when you apply any NR then it’s done at the stage where all RAW adjustments have been made prior to export to PS.

    If you start in DXO and apply NR does it as you say, it creates a DNG which you import then into Lr???

    Apologies for all the questions, just interested, but also here to help.
    Yes that is correct. I wasn't aware that you could apply DxO later in the process i.e. after the adjustments, but I will try and do so from now on. Thanks for the tip

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Chris, no idea how DXO works, to me it’s just a ‘sausage machine’ you drop the raw into it, moments later out comes an image, so no idea about using it after Lr. It’s just your files will be better, if NR is used after raw adjustments have been made. Plus, if the file is well exposed, you shouldn’t really need to apply it below 1600-2000 ISO.
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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