Hello all... Wasn't really quite sure where to post this. If it needs to be moved just let me know. I haven't been around in a while. Job change and other things have kept me pretty busy.
Trying to make the best of a bad lighting situation here. This Zebra is in a zoo and the image captured just before noon. Harsh sun light from camera left, perpendicular to the shot angle, with a very dark background…. Lots of contrast to begin with. On the front end I dialed in a fair amount of exposure compensation knowing it would keep me from not only blowing out the whites, but also help under expose the already dark BG. Also stopped it down a fair amount. On the back end in LightRoom... Slight crop, Increase Blacks, Clone out some very small areas of light coming through the tree canopy in the BG, bring up the white end of the curve a bit... but the original image isn’t that far from what you see here.
I personally love the way it came out and the result is what I had in mind at the time. Always curious what those with a better eye and more experience think!
40D & 100-400 @ 400mm, ISO 500, f14 @ 1/800, -5/3 EV
Not too shabby, Steve! I like the overall look and think it is very dramatic and "in your face." The one little thing I would add is to possibly lighten just the edges of the dark side of the zebra in order to give the mind a way to flesh out the darkened areas. You can barely see the stripes and angles on the right and that's nice but with a touch of really crisp dodging I think you could give the mind a bit more to work with without leaving the whole side in the light.
Thank you all for your comments! All are greatly appreciated! I kinda like it as is (too) for the reasons mentioned above. Adds a little mystry... even though it's obviously a zebra. Having said that it's something I can play with and tweek as time and taste moves forward. I think it looks better on a black BG as the dark side stripes show up just a little better.
Anyway... Thank you again for looking and your comments!
Best of a Bad Situation?
