Another image from my 2009 trip to the Sabi Sands Game Reserve in South Africa that I have revisited. Hopefully, the Greater Kruger Area will quickly recover from the recent floods.
Canon 50D
100-400 @380mm
1/500
f8
ISO 200
HH from a safari vehicle, luminosity mask, curves adjustment, selective color, cropped and sharpened in CS5.
Very nice detail and exposure. You can almost feel the velvet nose. Man the floods were pretty bad, we are just outside the Kruger (Near the Orpen Gate to Satara) we had 510mm fall in less than a day and a half. I am on leave and trapped on the reserve until tomorrow (Hopefully). We are getting moving equipment out to fix the roads, i'm trapped till they are finished. Our bridge on our access road was washed away, well not the concrete bridge itself but the earth all around it leaving a 20-40 foot canyon all around. Between all of us 4 Rangers we got stuck a total of 7 times with our Land Cruisers. It has been a real experience seeing the damage water can cause.
Dumay - thanks for the critique and glad to hear that you are safe. Generally from what I have been reading on various blogs and forums, most of the damage is to the roads and infrastructure with no loss of life (a very good thing). People are also reporting that many of the animals headed to higher ground in the days before the storm. Hope you are set free soon.
Clean looking and handsome portrait of this good looking zebra. I like the non-intrusive BG. I would shave ever so little off the left - in the LL corner is a couple of white specs from the white strip showing at the edges.
Hi Rachel, lovely portrait of a difficult subject with the blacks and whites nicely managed and sharpness just right. Very easy to oversharpen the mane area. TFS
Hi Rachel,
I like the contrast between the zebra and the background. The sheen on the zebra's coat can be seen nicely, excellent detail and fine comp. I agree with Robert that if you are going to clean the image further that the white areas on the lower right can be removed. Thanks for sharing,
Mark.
Wonderful and striking, Rachel, like how you composed shot, and crisp detail. Nice contrast with BG. Not sure if it is part of natural coloring, but I'm noticing a tiny bit of blue or cyan? in around edge of ear and lower muzzle?
Lovely side-on profile here Rachel - your processing does seem to be on a totally different level! I cannot wait to see what you bring back from your next trip.
I too see some blue in the whites, and I am wondering if you applied some extra blur to the BG???
Dumay - good to hear you guys are okay! In the tumult of the floods and the coverage mostly from the National Park I think many people forgot that you guys and many other lodges are also now trapped...
Hi Morkel - Thanks. I see some blue on my non-calibrated work monitor but did not see it on my calibrated home monitor (which I recalibrated this weekend). I had reduced the greens slightly because there was some green coming through near the mane. I did not blur the bg other than 2 rounds of NR after having applied Robert's mask to it.
Unfortunately, my next trip isn't until August so will just have to continue "revisiting" some of my other trips for now.
Love the light & detail on this portrait here Rachel, I too are seeing a cool/cyan cast on both of my cal monitors.
Have a look here at my color corrected RP and see if you notice a difference? (Even still there is a heavier blue tint on the edge of the facing ear, that I didn't adjust.)
TFS