I have been having fun with my camera (Sony a6700 and Sony 200-600 lens) and where I live I have many opportunities for birds and wildlife. Here are 2 favs processed (each with a small jpg copy of the RAW file).
11 Likes
These are two nice images! It looks like your camera fundamentals are very sound, the exposure is good and the post processing is subtle, very nice!
For the bird photo: the color is very nice. I like the way the out of focus branches frame the face and lead you to it. I might crop this into a square and eliminate the more in focus parts of the right hand side of the frame to really lean into the out of focus branches as a frame.
For the elephant: I really like the post and expression. Though I feel like maybe this should’ve been a portrait orientation in order to catch the rest of the trunk, which seems important and expressive to the animal on the whole.
2 Likes
Hey @Michael_Mayer nice shots…
The Southern Ground Hornbill… and frog/toad (might be two of them) is always going to be tricky with the foliage and trees, but it is what it is, and I think the crop works as well as it could; it’s real… as seen. As @paperdigits says, subtle processing, which works in my mind… I’ve sent these birds in the flesh/feather… Your processing looks real.
Same for the young elephant… Looks really natural. I’ve a great photo book by Kunkel on African Elephants… He says he is always striving for the perfect elephant shot, but never quite got it. Your shot is great; I see, in my minds eye, what this young elephant is doing… Probably different to what it was doing, but my vision is that it was just flapping about and playing… That’s what I ‘see’… I like it.
Thanks for sharing.
1 Like
Thanks so much @paperdigits. I’m a fan of just enough editing, but when you see the masks I create within the modules they are quite busy. I try pull out of the image what is there and what I experienced. I did a square crop at one stage! then I felt the forest was restricted and the mopane forests are so epic so kept it more open. Thanks for the framing mention, if you saw how many misfires I shot lol, then you will know how lucky I am to have got this one - but that’s nature for you.
Elephant (my precious): you are right about the trunk. I was restricted with fallen trees, and was playing with different zooms as I need shots to print onto my grandkids shirts (I’m a youngish Pop). The eye open blew me away as the fav as these lil okes love keeping their eyes hidden. my others are always with trunk 
1 Like
Thanks @SCHA, I also tallied two! bit of leg here and there, my wife can’t look at it. I have to block out the toads for her 
1 Like
Looking only on my phone the processing looks nice in terms of colour and exposure, good subjects, and you’ve got a great expression on the elephant. It’s eye is slightly in shadow, perhaps you can use a masked instance of exposure to make it pop a bit more?
Opposite to @paperdigits, I find the out of focus foreground objects distracting from the bird. Either way, I agree about a square crop.
And since the elephant trunk is out of frame, the image might be better balanced by cropping below the ear tip, pushing that out of frame also. That would really hone our attention on the eye.
1 Like