Sorry for the absence all these days , was travelling , then work and now back to BPN again. Had a wonderful trip to Bandhavgarh , Alas ! got to see some tigers and photography opportunities as well.
But I would like to post a Leopard image which I made at Botswana last year. Thought it would fit this months theme. I just loved the colours of the setting sun and the Leopard amidst the Khwai scape.
DPP 4.8, PSCC 2019 v 20.0.4, WB, curves, cropped from bottom.( removed a stump at the foot of the frame ).
Canon 1DX MK II, Canon 200-400mm f4, HH.
ss 1/2000, f/9, iso 4000.
Looking forward for all your comments and suggestions be it of any nature.
Haseeb.
Last edited by Gabriela Plesea; 05-31-2019 at 02:06 PM.
Glad you are back as we have missed you around here, but no need to apologise for your absence, we understand
I am sure you must have experienced a great sense of delight at this particular sighting - beautiful scene of solitude and tranquility and I love the mood and those sunset colours, reds in particular. As well as composition, with the subject so well placed within the frame.
Hope you agree, it is never easy shooting towards a very bright object, like the sun. Images taken with such a strong source of light in the frame often don't come close to what one remembers seeing. In this particular instance the sun is quite low and extremely bright, which makes it difficult for the camera to extract enough colour and brightness from other areas ( eg. foreground and leopard). Interesting that you posted this image tonight, I was actually reading earlier an article about Photoshop Layer Blending Modes and found it quite interesting. Also about exposure bracketing. So one way of dealing with this would have been to take two images, one with the leopard in the FG correctly exposed and another one of the sky, then blend them
Let us see what the others have to say, magic setting indeed and I am glad the Botswana trip gave you such memorable sightings. Thank you so much for sharing, I cannot wait to see more
Hi Haseeb, a reasonably hard image to process and there are many ways to capture this scene, bu to me it's all based on how you wanted to process it, as often thinking ahead, can dictate how you shoot the scene. F/9 I think is wasted, I might have gone to say f/5.6, or even f/4 wide open here a you didn't have the extender deployed which may have helped the overall techs. Getting some contrast in may help add some definition, but being right on the outskirts of the AF you may have found it had to obtain sharpness. I like the framing overall. Gabriela has made some good suggestions on perhaps how you could have captured the image and I'm sure if Morkel was here he could have chimed in to bolster the feedback.
Hi Haseeb .... thanks for posting this , i like this moody image a lot . I think you did well under the given circumstances and i partly agree with Gabriela on the technical side , a very difficult one to process .
But as said , i think you have done a great job !!!
Love the warm colors and the framing , a pleasure to view .
Hi Haseeb. A great attempt indeed. A tough situation due to bright light and back lit animal. And getting exposure properly and PP will he tough but you did manage well. Agree with the comments and suggestions above. TFS. Botswana is stunning.
Thank you everyone for your comments and suggestions.
@ Gabriela and Steve - Bracketing will be the next thing I am going to try when out on the field , will have to practice it as I have no experience of using it before.
@ Andreas -- The scene was quite close to this one as I can recall it but was really difficult to expose it against the sun.
@ Doc: Botswana is indeed stunning.
Haseeb I like it very much i think you have done well, I particularly like the fact that the spots on the leopard are visible and those little highlights look terrific, well done.