Sumatran Tiger

[Ian Cassell]

Taken at the Phoenix Zoo. I have to settle for this until I can see one of these beauties in the wild!

Canon 7D
Sigma 100-300mm f/4 EX @ 300mm
1/400 sec f/6.3 ISO 3200 HH


No Crop
Levels and Conversion in CS5
Sharpening in Perfect Resize/CS5
NR on BG in Noiseware Pro

[Tom Redd]

Ian, great shot for a zoo photo, nice perspective and no fences. I like the pose and the B/W conversion. It might be just a tad tight on the crop above and below, especially. I like this shot and I am right there with you, it is a zoo for me until I can get to see it in the wild....

[pat lillich]

love that face Ian, and the sense that he is about to stalk out of the image right at you. wish there was a little more room at the right.

[Julie Kenward]

I could use with a bit more room also, pretty much all the way around. You have a beautiful pose and HA here - the eye contact is almost daunting so good job! I also like the B&W conversion but would suggest looking at the hot spot on the tiger's back paw and toning that down a bit.

Another look that might be interesting is to take it halfway to b&w...desaturate the colors until they barely show to give him some warmth of the color of his fur while letting the lines of this hide carry the weight of the image.

Oh, and I'd clone out that white line that is coming out of his backside.

[Levina de Ruijter]

Hi Ian. Nice to see you here too.
This is a powerful image and I like it a lot. I just would love to see this with a bit of colour! But well done.

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, all. I wish I had a bit more real-estate, but this is full-frame and I'm absolutely no good at adding (I'll file the image away for when I have some time to work on my real-estate adding skills). The little things (the hot spot on the paw and the white line) will be gone!

It's an interesting thought to half-desaturate it, Jules. A friend recently did that with a lion image from the zoo and I liked it. I'll give it a try.

Oh, and Levina, I was unhappy with the color version. The cat was pretty noisy at ISO 3200 and I think it was not as effective. I'll try to remember to look for it and post it tonight when I get home.

[Paul Lagasi]

Agree with the above comments but you got an image of a very rare animal, even in zoo's.
Funny you should post this today, last night I watched this video on National Geographic TV

http://natgeotv.com/uk/sumatras-last-tiger

If you get a chance to see it, it gices you a good idea of the plights of this rare animal, only 400 left in the wild.

[Ian Cassell]

Wow, Paul. I knew they were endangered, but had no idea how few there really are. I'll keep my eye open for that NatGeo show. Thanks.

[Peter Farrell]

I also wish there was more room all around and also noticed the hot spot on the rear paw.
Biggest thing for me is the BG. Looks like some cloning artifacts on the left and I would get rid of the sticks urc. A great pose and eye contact and the open mouth adds to the image. Looks good as a b&w.
Peter

[Dave Leroy]

I like the stare. Pretty intense.

I also like the b/w and wonder how a bit of colour would look.

Pretty easy to learn how to add some canvas and a couple ways to do it. One method is in the Tutorial Section. I find that when needed it can be handy skill to have.

Well done.

Dave