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Thread: Elephants of Savuti

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    Default Elephants of Savuti

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    Canon 5Dmk2, Canon 16-35f/2.8 II, handheld. S/s 1/320 at f/11. Iso 400. Plus 0.33 exp comp. Focal length 16mm. Savuti bush camp, northern Botswana. 9 May 2011, 09h00am. Cropped from 21mp to 20.4mp. The tongue of water in this image juts out from the Savuti into the woodland, and becoming a favourite place for elephants to come and drink as the dry season approaches. I was lucky to have a day with some clouds in the sky to add depth and shape. Being in the middle of this group (I only fitted less than half the eles in the herd, there were about 75 of them) and hearing them breathe, drink and splash around us was awe-inspiring. Light was getting a bit on the strong side.
    All C and C welcome.
    cheers
    Grant

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    That's a big gang Grant , love the cloud pattern and overall design of image
    TFS

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    lovely image... Grant.. you handle the light very well with the wide angle...

    I think this would work very well as b&w with red filter on sky... i also quite like it flipped horizontally .. with subjects on left looking in to water on RHS...

    lovely image well done

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    thanks Harshad, and Peter, your comments are appreciated and noted. Peter, I will have a look at a b and w version but not for posting...
    thanks again
    cheers
    grant

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    BPN Member Morkel Erasmus's Avatar
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    spectacular perspective here Grant...wish it was mine!!

    here is a repost (hope you don't mind) applying what I told you before...

    Robert's multiplied highlights layer
    * go to channels palette
    * select highlights in RGB by clicking on circle icon at the bottom of the palette
    * make a layer from that selection
    * change blending mode to "multiply" and adjust opacity to between 20-50% to taste (I chose 50%)

    then I just did a slight LCE (local contrast enhancement) on the sky portion using a gradient mask.
    * layer everything
    * USM 20% 10 pixels (usually use 50px radius for high res image, 10px for web res image)
    * mask layer
    * gradient tool, draw line straight up from front ellie's head to the top

    what do you think??
    Morkel Erasmus

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    Hi Morkel, thanks for the time and effort here..much appreciated. I am viewing on a camp computer right now, not my own laptop, so I am going to have to comment tomorrow when I can see it on a decent screen. thanks again for listing that workflow, I will have a go on the original shot...
    cheers
    grant

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    Ken Watkins
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    To me the original post looks like it has suffered from S & H, Morkel's repost corrects this very well.

    In my experience 75 Elephant is not a very large herd for Botswana or for that matter Etosha or Hwange, are they generally this size at your end of the Savute Channel? Not that this should be taken in anyway as a criticism just a comment.

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    Man this is a outstanding image Grant, love everything about it...And the repost of Morkel's makes it even better!

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    Beautiful image Grant, only thing which bothers me is the weird look of the rhs elephant's hind leg which is due to wide angle lens, I'm sure. Just keeps drawing my eye.
    Love the way the clouds direct the eye to the herd. Such a lovely setting that I can imagine plenty of interesting images coming out of the encounter. I would love to see such a large herd, quite a sight. TFS.

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    Hi Grant,

    This is my personal taste, but like head angle on birds, I prefer a good head angle on wildlife. The two largest in frame elephants on the right are facing away from us, so I feel the image loses impact.

    I do see what I would have gone for in an image in this scene: crop the two largest in frame elephants out and focus (looks like around 100 mm) on the distant elephants. A vertical with the elephants facing toward us, with the trees and sky in the background. Those elephants are nicely facing the camera. Did you image them too with a longer focal length?

    Roger

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    BPN Viewer Tom Graham's Avatar
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    The distorted looking ele on the right side bothers me a lot.

    Tom

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Certainly a spectacular sight to have witness I am sure Grant, great to see a good sized herd.

    I think the angle could be improved, but without being there it's difficult to suggest which you could have gone. Morkels repost is an improvement, but I think you can get a bit more depth out of the original, perhaps dropping the exposure a fraction and punching up the sky, as the OP does look a bit light.

    Great to see a wider POV.

    TFS
    Steve
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    Thanks Dumay, Roger, Steve, Tom and Hilary, for looking and commenting. Steve, regarding angle, I could not move the vehicle once the elephants were approaching. This image was taken at 16mm so you can figure out that they were pretty close. Morkels repost has helped the image, and I have in fact reprocessed the image with some of his suggestions applied, and the new version looks about as good as I will get it. Roger, I shot with the 300mm lens, as well as the 70-200mm lens, and got a fair bunch of images from the sighting, as it went on for a few minutes. One thing to note is that the sky low to the horizon often takes on a white tone, due to dust and haze in the atmosphere, and you can see it low down in this image. Hence shooting with the 70-200, you would not end up with the deep blue tone to the sky overhead but rather end up having a contrast issue where dark trees meet white skyline unless you were able to shoot from water level upwards perhaps. I am happy with quite a few of the images I got from this sighting, but none give the overall feel of this one, with the sky and the proximity of the close elephants, and the other herds in the BG. Hilary not sure what to respond to the shape of the elephants leg? If I had zoomed in much to get rid of lens distortion, I would have lost out on the sky....I do have one image where the closest elephant is walking toward the camera, but it will probably work best as B and W
    thanks again for commenting
    cheers
    Grant

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Grant - great that you thought to go wide with this scene. I love the colors. Like Roger, I do wish that the 2 ellies on the right were angled a little more towards you but certainly understand its not always possible to move in the bush. Morkel's repost improves the image IMHO. Looking forward to seeing more from the sighting.

    TFS,
    Rachel

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    Robert Amoruso
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    Grant,

    Good choice on the wide angle to get it in but I am bothered by how the lens distortion makes the elephants look a bit strange and elongated (two in FG). However I have seen images like this in NatGeo so what do I know.

    Morkel did exactly what I was going to suggest. And I agree with Roger on the two FG elephants. However, the two do act well as a leading line pointing into the image which has a natural flow from to the BG elephants.

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Cheers Grant, best not to get your feet wet in that location, fond memories.

    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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    A lovely image Grant, it aways great to see Ellies drinking water. I like the near Elly even though he is slighty distorted and nice cloud patterns. Excellent lens choice TFS

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    Ofer Levy
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    I like this alot. I don't mind the distorted ones on the right or the HA. This image is more about the herd and habitat rather than the individual animlas and it works just fine IMO. Actually, having the animals on the right looking toward you would have killed this image for me as I love how they lead you into the image...

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    Grant, I enjoyed this image, I like the depth and the clouds. TFS.

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    I like the image as presented Grant and agree with Ofer, the near Elephants lead the viewer into the scene and are right for this image.

    Like Morkels repost and will have to work through that process.TFS.

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    Thanks Pieter, Robert, Rachel, Tom, Vivaldo, Ofer and Steve, your time and comments are appreciated. I guess I am quite used to viewing images of animals taken with wide angle lenses up close, and accept the distortion as part of what a lens does. Thanks again for commenting
    cheers
    Grant

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    Quote Originally Posted by Grant Atkinson View Post
    Roger, I shot with the 300mm lens, as well as the 70-200mm lens, and got a fair bunch of images from the sighting, as it went on for a few minutes. One thing to note is that the sky low to the horizon often takes on a white tone, due to dust and haze in the atmosphere, and you can see it low down in this image. Hence shooting with the 70-200, you would not end up with the deep blue tone to the sky overhead but rather end up having a contrast issue where dark trees meet white skyline unless you were able to shoot from water level upwards perhaps.
    Hi Grant,
    I cropped the repost to show what I was thinking in terms of a crop. I would keep the sky, and as you can see, the crop still has the nice blue sky. Some variation on this I think would be very effective and the elephants are facing towards the viewer. I have s similar image to this I post soon, but it does not have the nice blue sky.

    Roger

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    Hi Roger, thanks for taking the time to repost and crop my image. I did in fact take virtually that same shot that you have created from the crop, and I will post it soon. I also have one where the right hand elephants from my OP are looking towards me. Thanks again for your input, I will take it into consideration when I post another shot from this sighting.
    cheers
    Grant

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    Ken Watkins
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    Roger,

    Your repost is an entirely different approach, and to my mind shows the Elephants in a far more natural stance.
    Of course it would have been better to have taken an image with this type of composition in the first place.

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    BPN Member Morkel Erasmus's Avatar
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    with all due respect, Roger, I think the crop loses the "uniqueness" of this shot...

    the original shot had a thumbnail that just screamed "open me" as it just is something different (something I have been debating in many of my recent postings).
    if your repost had been the thumbnail on the gallery, I would probably have opened most of the other postings of that day before returning to this one - but hey, that is personal taste and what makes this art-form so unique and sometimes so hotly debated.


    I am curious to see those with more "direct" eye contact from the 2 closest ellies, Grant. :)
    Morkel Erasmus

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    Hi Morkel, thanks for chipping in here with your thoughts. As stated earlier, I shot quite a few different angles, and with different lenses. After a quick look through, this one is my favourite, and perhaps that is because the thumbnail in Bridge jumped out at me as well, so I processed it first. I respect Rogers view, as I do those folks comments who did not like the distorted shape of the elephants. Again, for me, the wide-angle distortion tells of close proximity to the herd, and I shot it that way to try and get the feeling across of being amongst the drinking herd. When we use telephoto lenses to take up-close images of wildlife, we are used to the background being blurred out in the shots, and you that is not a depiction of reality either, as there arent too many naturally blurred backgrounds out there. So I guess it depends on personal taste, and there seem to be more likes for this shot than dislikes, so I shall keep it as is. I will get around to posting others within the next week or two...

    cheers
    Grant

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    Grant and Morkel, very interesting point about the thumbnails. It is one of the reasons I am drawn to open some images and not others, especially when time is very short. Although Roger's crop is nice (and I'll look forward to seeing your images taken with a similar type of crop, Grant) I think the point of the OP has been lost. I actually like the striking view of the elephants around the water and it doesn't take much to reconcile myself to the odd hind leg. As I have mentioned before, there is a place for images of wildlife where we are taken into the wilderness without the feeling that the animals are conscious of our presence, therefore, I have no issue with animals not looking at the camera provided the composition is strong and interesting. But it isn't for everyone, I accept that.

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