Here's Wally!

[Gerald Kelberg]

It seems fairly quiet on this board, so hopefully I am not being too tedious posting yet another image from my sequence with this Walrus in Svalbard.

I think some will find that the image is too tight top and bottom, but that is the way I like it, so please humour me on that!

The image was shot with my Sony A9 II and FE 200-600 at 600mm. Shutter speed 1/1000 sec at f/9.0, ISO 1250

I found the PP quite challenging on this image - trying to get the fur right - it is very patchy - bare in places, greying in others; some parts wet and some dry. The Walrus had been laying on the ice and lifted itself up to move to the water.

In Lightroom, I have adjusted the WB overall warming up slightly for less blue snow. Some additional Exposure and opened shadows and applied a radial gradient to lighten the area under the chest. Point Color was used to slightly desaturate the pink on the skin. Masks used to selectively adjust face and eye.

In PS I have re-sized the image and applied USM for output.

Hopefully you will find the image interesting and I look forward top receiving your thoughts and comments.

Gerald

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gerald, you have the sharpness and clarity nicely 'nailed' albeit viewing currently on a MBP 16 inch.

I think some will find that the image is too tight top and bottom, but that is the way I like it, so please humour me on that!

Shooting as tight as this, plus only in Landscape format, really is a straight jacket and although its your choice, I do feel it does harm the overall capture and limits how you can convey you chosen subject.

If you keep the blue bias backdrop, I would look at just upping the Temp and fractionally drop the Tint ie - +6, -2 (personal pref) and look at warming Wally up either via mask in Lr or Ps, plus Colour point.

The low POV again is spot on.


TFS
Steve

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Steve,

Good to hear I am making some progress on getting the sharpness and clarity sorted.

I have many images from this encounter, Some more open and some tight like this one. I understand where you are coming from, but since I am principally viewing images on a monitor, landscape is my preference.

Agree on warming the Wally. I have done that on some subsequent images.

Great what you can get hanging over the side of the zodiac!

Thanks and best wishes, Gerald

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gerald,

I understand where you are coming from, but since I am principally viewing images on a monitor, landscape is my preference.

Basically it's putting the subject in its environment. You could have shot this wide with say a 70-200, having Wally smallish in the scene, or go tight, but there is a point where you go so close, it just kills the shot because the subject has nothing to sit on/frame it.

The shape of the monitor shouldn't affect the choice in framing as many now are 'landscape' in format, so you can tweak the window shape of the Software programme you are using. Do you use a grid in the viewfinder, if not that may help you?

Cheers
Steve

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nice image I like the details, to my unaccustomed Arctic eye colours look fine. I do think however a little large in the frame.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gerald ... lovely portrait of Wally .
I do like everything about it .... just the fact that Wally is squeezed too much into the frame is kind of a shortcoming here , IMHO.

Cool job and TFS Andreas