News for the ‘Techniques’ Category

Composition in African Wildlife Photography

In this article I describe three typical types of African Wildlife compositions and the features that make them successful.  My goal is to get you planning ahead, analyzing the scene in front of you, and consciously using your knowledge of composition to achieve the best rendering of the exciting animals you will see on safari.

Looking through my catalogue I can put most of my images into three categories images: animal portraits, animals with environment or landscape, and groups of animals

Animal Portraits

These images have one center of interest; the animal. All other elements that can be distracting are eliminated and all the viewer’s attention is on the animal, its textures, and eyes.

Setting the Camera for the Portrait

When setting up for animal portraits try to include the following camera techniques

-       Include an uncluttered background of solid color. Best way to achieve this is by blurring out the background so it is monochromatic and has little texture leaving the subject in sharp focus.

-       Use apertures such as f2.8 f4.0 or f5.6

-       The background should be at least 2 feet behind the subject

Placement of the Subject in the Frame

Most portrait subjects will be too large in the frame to worry about Rule of Thirds placement (more on that below). If there is space around the subject, it should be in front of the subject or in the direct that the subject is moving or looking.

Get close and fill the frame – cropping can be done after the fact to add impact if the aspect ratio is not flatter or you just were not sure how to frame the shot.

Other Elements that add to the Portrait

Light and shadows enhance interest. Light from the side reveals texture and gives the 3D pop effect. Shadows can play down less important features. Light can create leading lines that help viewers discover all the details of the portrait.

Some external elements can enhance the portrait almost like props: a bit of fresh kill, flights buzzing around the head, a bit of the branch gripped in a talon.

The carcass bits in this image add to the portrait explaining the look of bliss on the lion’s face and tail attitude

Animal in its Environment or with a Landscape

The goal here is to show the animal interacting with its environment.  In these images there can be more than one center of attention. The smaller the animal is in the frame, the more importance lies in the composition and its success at getting the viewers attention on the subject

This image not only describes the shape of the young lion, but it’s hunting conditions and challenges.  The eye goes from lion, then up and across the open space.

Place Elements Using Rule of Thirds

Position the subject in one of the strong points of the  Rule of Thirds grid.

The subject should be walking, looking, or flying into the centre of the frame. If it is larger than the frame, there should be more space infront than behind it.  As the subject gets smaller the importance of correct placement increases.

Lead the Viewer Around the Scene

Leading the viewers eye to the subject,  especially when the subject is smaller relative to the  rest of the image is achieved through careful composition.

Make the subject easy to spot : in contrast to the background

Look for and use leading lines: these are straight or curved lines that lead from a corner or edge of the frame to the subject (rivers, paths, tree branches).

Present a Story. Begin to think in terms of a still image as a story with  a beginning (where the viewer’s eyes go first), middle  (what they will notice next), and end.  Think about what other elements should be in the image to complete this movement and discovery.

Leave some active space for the subject to move into.  Space also helps tell the story: it leaves the viewer space to use imagination to fill in off camera elements that complete the story . Space is good for anticipating and catching future action: leave the subject room to spring.

Light can serve as a leading line drawing a path from the light source to the subject.   The shadows that will result tell us what is not important.  If shaded items are important, consider using HDR techniques or open these areas in postproduction.

Resizing and Cropping is part of the toolbox. Don’t forget about vertical shots and consider how vertical can enhance the composition (emphasizing trees and giraffes).  Cropping can be done after the fact , but adding space back in to improve a composition is much harder so don’t squeeze your animal in a landscape images too much in camera or you will be removing creative flexibility.

Depth and Vanishing points tell a story. Use depth to place story elements such that viewers are drawn into the 3d scene. Depth and the correct lens can create movement, record proportions and distances. An element in the background can make the whole composition more interesting as long as it is part of the story and not a distraction (a lion moving toward the viewer  or shade tree with a carcass  in the background).

Animal Groups

These images are not tight enough to be portraits and do not show many elements of the environment. The center of interest is the group rather than any particular one animal.

Combinations of 3’s work well and have a harmonious balance. Symmetry  such as all looking the same direction or each in an opposite direction gives a balanced feel.  Odd numbers, odd shapes, triangles are more visually interesting and should be included.  This is a chance to show different poses and sides of the animal all at the same time (front, ¾, and side view all at once).  Mixing sizes (juveniles and adults) of animals  or species is  interesting content.

See the Negative Space. Negative space is the outline created by subject(s) as if it was viewed as a silhouette. African animals are perfect subjects for their interesting shapes.  Catch poses and groups that are creating an interesting shape and place them against neutral backgrounds for strong compositions.

Composition Does not Stop after the Shoot

Once back in front of the computer you can still enhance composition.  The following are all useful tools for furthering your compositional goals.

-       Use creative cropping: You may wish to make several versions of an image each with a different crop.

-       Use tonal adjustments to enhance the impact of the subject, downplay distractions, and otherwise lead the viewer as you intended through contrast and proper lighting.

-       Use color adjustment in a similar manner to lighting to  announce the subject (perhaps through saturation) and downplay secondary elements (desaturate or limit color variation and texture).

-       Use Blur to fade out distracting detail.

-       Clone or Heal elements that are really distracting and can not be cropped out.

Learn to quickly analyze a scene for story, interesting elements to include, what not to include, textures to highlight, light direction, and movement.  Good composition is mostly achieved in the field as you plan the shot and read the animal.

Edited: May 15th, 2012

Creative Black and White Treatments

With the right image, black and white and monochrome effects can take the image to levels more striking and full of impact than color.  African animal portraits are often perfect candidates for experimentation and statement through black and white.

Black and white can envoke the classic and romantic notion of African safaris, but there  are some attributes that make some images better fuel for black and white than others.

Low Color Contrast:  Many animals have coloration that blends them into their surroundings and to be successful they must use this effectively.  An image of a lion in dry grass can be flat, but when treated in black and white, shape and texture that was previously washed out comes to life.

Neutral Color Subject: Elephants and rhino are more or less grayscale naturally and it is hard to make them pop out as a subject when surrounded by flashier colored skies and vegetation.  In monochrome they can stand out.

Animals with texture: Fur detail, skin texture, whiskers, and face features are often more apparent in a black and white. Details lost to our eyes because of color variations are easier to interpret.

Images with color or lighting issues: In many cases images with great composition and content that suffer from some lighting  or severe color cast problems can show better in monochrome.

Below I present 3 creative ways to use monochrome each of which goes beyond the desaturate slider.

Enhanced High Contrast Portrait

This style is characterized by  detail presented in an aged, almost studio style with a historic feel.

Features of this style include:

Portrait style subject with lots of texture and detail

Burnt edges

High contrast subject

Dark textured background

Start with a portrait with a neutral background.  Use Photoshop to clear elements from the background then open in Lightroom Develop Mode.  This technique works easily in PS using layers and masks, but I will work on this in Lightroom.

Mostly desaturate the image and add high contrast using the Tone Curve.  We want a dark background so lower the Exposure a little bit and add a pretty large Vignette.

Use the Graduated Filter tool to further darken from the edge in. Setting Exposure down while keeping Contrast high and Highlights way up will keep some texture in the darkened areas.  Drag several graduated filters out from the edges to frame the subject.

Now we need to finish darkening the background and add a “spotlight” onto the subject so it pops.  Use the adjustment brush with a large feathered brush set at a low flow to darken background around the subject.  Decrease the brush size to get in close to the subject while leaving a slight halo effect around.

Click New to start an adjustment brush to brighten the subject.  Paint all over the face and use the sliders to intensify the effect.  Add final touches like a crop, Dodging effect on the eyes and nose and it is finished.  Use Split Toning to add a color tint to the monochrome.

Duo Tone /  Split Tone

A duo tone image is one in which is printed in 2,3, or 4 colors. It is a way to get subtle richness to a monochrome image.  Lightroom supports using two tones (under Split Toning). The control allows you to set one tone for the Highlights and another for the Shadows and then lets you control  the balance between the two.  In Photoshop  the Duotone option lets you choose up to 4 colors.

In Lightroom, desaturate and correct the contrast of the image.  Under Split Toning , select a highlight color or use the Hue slider to set the Highlights. Saturation will control how subtle the effect is.   Next select a color for the Shadows.  Play with the saturation sliders and Balance until you are happy with the results.

In Photoshop, open the tonally corrected image either already in black and white or in color then convert to grayscale.  Make sure the image is in 8bit mode then the option under Image – Mode – Duotone will be available.

In the control box you can browse through  the preset to get ideas or find one you like.  Make your own or begin with a preset and modify it.  To switch to 3 tones or 4 change the value in the Type box.  The curve will control which range of tones is affected.  The possibilities are endless.  When you find one you like you can save it for easy reuse.

Hand Tinted Effect

Start with a image and convert it to black and white.  For this technique I prefer a conversion to black and white that is lower contrast.  I like the Lightroom preset called Creamtone” .  It uses a range from a dark in the the gray-green range and a light tone in the beige range.  Open the image for editing in Photoshop to finish the hand tinting.

For this effect you will want to use just a few highlight colors applied to areas that are part of the subject.

In Photoshop, create a new layer for each color you will use.  Create the layer and rename it for the color.  You will want to keep the original luminosity fo the image as you add color so a good way to do this is to put each layer in Color blend mode.  This will ensure that you wont get any hard-edged opaque looking patches of color. You might also want to start with each layer at less than 100% opacity. Use the airbrush tool or a soft edged brush at low opacity: you can overpaint to add intensity.  Perfect application is not the style here. Use the eraser if you make a mistake.

For the final balancing you can change opacity, add a saturation layer,  even do a bit of dodge and burn to the color layers.

In the finished image I used one shade of red to color the meat, a bit of pink on the tongue, yellow in the eye, and two shades of green lightly applied to the grass in the foreground.

Edited: April 26th, 2012

Using the Curves Tool in Lightroom 4

I open this image of a cheetah and immediately notice a color cast toward blue and a lack of contrast.  To concentrate myself on just the tonal range, I move the Saturation Slider all the way to the left to -100.

Improve Contrast by setting True Black and White

Set the Black

Now I need to decide which part will be black . In this image, all of the blackest points will be on the cheetah with the darkest either the end of the tail, in the nose, or corner of the eye.

Pick up the Direct Adjustment tool (the circle with up and down arrows to the left of the Curve), I drag it over the image noting where on the curve the value registers.  I notice the cat’s righ

t nostril to be the darkest point.  Note also the range on the curve where all of the spots register. I will use all of these (except the small spots on the forehead) to define “Shadows” for this image.

I want the left tear pattern to be the brightest limit of the “Shadows” so I drag the left most marker under the curve a little to the right. Now I drag the slider  titled Shadows under the curve so the darkest spot in the nostril falls to the corner of the curve.  You can turn on your color indicators for Black Clipping (the triangle on the left in the histogram) so you can see if you go too far.  A little loose of detail is ok.

Set the White

You might want to reference the color version to be sure you are selecting an area that is white and not beige. There are white spots on the face, but using the numbers displayed in the histogram and curve I find a spot on the leading leg to be the brightest, but not true white.

Once again I want to change the definition of “Highlights” to suit this image. I want to adjust all the brightest areas on the cat (and this will also include a few tips of the grass) together towards true white. Use the measurements along to curve to decide where to move the slider.  I decide the darkest place I want to include among my “Highlights” would be the area just over the right eye.  I move the slider to the left to include part of this fur coloration. You can use the Direct Adjustment tool by placing it on a spot of highlight and dragging it up to make the tone brighter or move the slider to the right.

Adjust the Midtones

Now the view the image full size looking at the subject and details in the foreground to decide where you want to create more contrast.  There is some detail in the grass to bring out, but more important is the color variation of the fur on the face.

Use the adjustment tool on the image to push up and down on the tones on the face.  Once you are more familiar, will be able to work right on the curve and fine tune the sliders. Be careful not to push too far, this should be subtle.  Follow up this adjustment with a move of the Clarity slider to the right.

Adjust Color Using Curves

Return the color to the image by putting the Saturation slider back to 0. The color is much improved, still has

a cool, blue cast.  Confirm this by passing the Eyedropper or Curves Adjustment tool over areas of neutral color (white and black ). The grass looks too blue as well.

Since the color cast seems to be all over and present in all tone levels, you could use a White Balance adjustm

ent, but  using the Curves (and refining with the HSL Color controls later) will give you much more control.

Convert your view of the Tone Curve to one where you can choose one of the three color channels. Click the little graph image at the bottom of the box and the sliders disappear.  Click the arrow next to Channel to select Blue from the list.

Use the Direct Adjust tool on an area of white to pull down the pull just a little bit. Don’t go as far as you think it should.  Now switch to a shadow area and pull down the blue watching the color value changing under Histogram. Go back to the light area and finish it off.

Finishing Touches

Color and contrast look much better.  A small move of White Balance toward warm and green make the scene look really nice, but now the cat looks a bit dull and vanishes into the scene too much.

A Saturation adjustment works here (Vibrancy will not because what we want to enhance falls into the “skin tone” range that Vibrancy protects.). Another way is to go under the Color controls and use the Saturation and Luminance under the Reds, Oranges, and Yellows to get the look you want.

I pushed the Yellow Hue toward green to differentiate brown grass from brown cheetah, popping him out from the grass. I also brightened the yellow grass to move it tonally away from the tones of the cheetah. The cheetah is mostly in the Orange range so I saturated that and brightened the orange component of the fur a bit. The shadowed fur has some red so I did the same but subtly to it as well.

The last step would be to work on the eyes with a dodge and burn effect.

Edited: April 19th, 2012

Using Lightroom Metadata to Research Best Settings

I use Lightroom 3 primarily for organization and secondly for quick to medium difficulty adjustments.  My advanced work and preparation for print are still done in PS.  Many times LR  is all I need to select photos, prep them for use on the web, and export them.

With all of these features and with more integration tools, added image adjustment capabilities, and printing options going into the program, it is easy to forget that LR is a database. Like all databases, it is only as good as the data is complete and detailed, but if you manage the detail you can create a powerful learning and efficiency tool.

I am a wildlife photographer and a habitual photographer who photographs in the same location over and over and with the same subjects.  The conditions and sometimes fast action do not leave much time to fuss with settings and adjust.  I do get some chances to experiment, but I want to be in the ball park when I enter the water or get in the game vehicle.  This is where a little extra time in LR  provides me with a valuable learning tool.  I consult it before each trip and keep charts for each camera and lens as a quick cheat sheet based on real data.

Settings, time of image, flash use, and equipment are all recorded in the metadata automatically (make sure you adjust the time on your camera for time zones and daylight savings!) but I also enforce the discipline of  recording the location in detail  (for example: north corner or in canal), the sky and lighting conditions, and for underwater – the visibility.  Next I will try to add tides to that.  I also rate each photo before I do much adjusting to it and I keep all but the really embarrassing shots – at least until my disk gets full.

I have learned some surprising things such as all of my best manatee photographs happened between 9am and 9:30am.  There was a significant drop off in number of quality shots before and after this time and the golden time ranges later as it gets later in the season. This makes sense due to the lengthening of days and the sunrise getting later.  Knowing this, I no longer have to get up before dawn!

Using the Library Filter panel in LR I can use it like a query tool to see a count of images with the keywords I have chosen and combinations of the ISO, flash, rating, etc that I choose.  The tool is not a perfectly flexible query tool but you can be clever with your keywords and how you record data to get it to track and measure what you are interested in.  Maybe improvements to this will make it into a future release.

When I have my manatee workshop next week I will be able to look at the time, weather, and water conditions and recommend settings.  I prepared the following chart using meta data in LR.

7am to 9 am
	Cloudy and/or  low visibility	ISO 640	F2.8	1/80 – 1/100
	Bright and clear visibility	ISO 320	F3.2 – f5.0	1/60 – 1/80
9 am – 10 am
	Cloudy and/or  low visibility	ISO 640	F6.3	1/100
	Bright and clear visibility	ISO 400	F4.0 – 6.3	1/80 – 1/125
10 am – 11:30	Cloudy and/or  low visibility	ISO 500 – 320	F6.3 – 8.0	1/80
	Bright and clear visibility	ISO 160 ISO 250	F7.1 – f8.0 F6.3	1/60 1/250

For use on my safaris, I am using the  data to come up with animal specific settings given lighting conditions.  Of course you can use the histogram on the camera screen and your experience to do the same thing, but many times I cant take the time to analyze and adjust in the field (while cageless with sharks or at a lion hunt) Thus is the nature of wildlife and sports photography.

If you needed another reason to keep you photos organized and properly loaded, taking this “big picture” look at a collection of images of your favorite subject  is very rewarding.

Edited: January 19th, 2012

Scanning My Slides to Digital

Back in 2005 I published a book  using all slide images, but 7 years on I find myself using my slide images less and less.  That changed recently when I had a request for some images that only exist in my collection as slides.  Once I started working with them my opinion of my digitized slide images has gone from one of weak and time consuming to being excited at the potential of some of the best of them.

My slide to digital adventure started in 2007. I was already well into digital and my last film trip was in 2005 (remember those x-ray proof bags?).  Most of the slides were not in trays and I didn’t have many trays due to the fact that I sold the trays on Ebay while the market was still high.  Add to that the fact that the bulbs in my projector were so expensive and kept braking, and I was ready to commit to get all of these slides digitized. My main goal was to get them into digital form just to see what I had, but I still scanned them at the highest specs and quality  that my scanner could do.  The physical slides would then be organized and stored so any really nice image could be pulled and treated to a drum scan or better.

In summary it went like this:

Triaged   maybe 8,000 – 9,000  slides

Cued up 6000 slides to scan

Scanned most of those

Today still have  4850   slide based files in the database

Each file is  124.6 MB  and 5568 x 3724  pixels

The first step was to triage on the lightbox and number each of the ones that passed beyond the “junking” step.  This number would then become the file number for the digital file. My naming scheme was similar to my usual naming scheme but had an indicator for slide.

This was the comparatively fun part:  Each scan took around 15 minutes to perform and I set a minimum goal of 20 slides per day, everyday.   It was a drain on my system and nearly caused my computer to catch fire in the hot summer months but I stuck to it.   I scanned with no extras such as adjustments or cropping; just a straight scan with the eye toward fixing them with the expert tools in PS or Lightroom. After they were scanned and saved I added them to the Lightroom catalogue then added keywords and the metadata including the location, dates, and other things if I could remember.

Close to a year later I was finished – this was the worst project I had ever done, but now I could really assess what I had.  Some of the slides have been removed due to my improving skills or technical issues I just could not over come.  Occasionally I rescan a slide to try to improve the original, but many taken at locations I frequent have been surpassed by digital images and thus languish with a rating of 1 star or have been removed.  The unique images in my collection, however, still hold promise.  At this time I am waiting on word as to whether a collection mostly slide images will be selected for publication in a dive tourism manual.

Edited: January 3rd, 2012

Making a Cinemagraph from a Wildlife Video: Tutorial

See more of my cinemagraphs at Manatee Photography Tips Blog Post

More cinemagraphs made from during my Photo Safari to South Africa Cinemagraphs

A Cinemagraph is a new phrase to describe a still image that contains a subtle element of motion.  It is a new take on animated .GIF files. They are created from a good still image and an element of frame animation usually from a video.

Select a Still Image and Matching video

Start with a good image.  The motion is an enhancement not the main focus.  Process the photo to your liking. Plan the composition with the inset video clip in mind.

Choose to animate an element that can be effectively presented in just a few frames: the masking and other actions must be done layer by layer so the fewer layers and frames of animation the better.  It should be a subtle movement rather than a radical movement.

If at all possible create your video using a tripod.  This is not possible in my wildlife photography, so I have to choose clips where the camera was steady and movement other than the target movement is minimal.

Create a short video clip

I use Final Cut Express to take a longer clip and create a short segment of motion.  I export the subclip in Quicktime format. Photoshop can ready several formats.

To create the animated gif, Photoshop must be operating in 32-bit mode.  The method for doing this on a Mac is different from that on the PC.

Mac:  Open the Applications folder, click on the Adobe Photoshop CS5 application icon, press Command-I. In the Info dialog, check the box labeled Open in 32 bit mode.  Close the dialog and open Photoshop

PC: Close Photoshop. Navigate to program Files (x86) >Adobe>Adobe Photoshop CS5 and double-click the Adobe Photoshop CS5.exe file.

When I am creating a wildlife cinema graph, I create the video with my  DSLR camera and while making the video I will snap stills.  When I go to plan a cinemagraph, I look for the best still image to use with the video inset.  Another method is to use the first frame of the video as the “still”.  I prefer to work with a high resolution raw file as my still.

When that is complete, open the video clip  in PS5.  File>Import>Video frames to layers.  Choose the subclip that you prepared and press Open.  Each frame of the video will become a layer.   Choose the From Beginning to End option box and make sure the Make Frame Animation option is checked and pres OK.  Save this file as a PSD – this will be your working Cinemagraph master file.

You will need to open the Animation plan to work with the frames as animation.  Window>Animation.   In the Layers panel, make Layer1 active.  Near the top of the panel, click the Unify layer visibility icon.

To help fix a shaky video:

Select all of the layers

Edit>Auto Align Layers   choose one of the options – Auto is probably best.

This will examine each layer and try to stabilize the image.  It is not perfect, but it helps and it will save you time aligning by hand later on. This function can take a while if you have many frames. Best option: Use a tripod!! Tell the elephant not to move his head.

Add your Still Image

If you are using a still image as your base layer,  place this image into the composition and size it to match the video file dimensions.

If you are not using a separate image, your first frame will be your base image and visible throughout the animation while the other layers turn on and off to create the movement.

Isolate the Animated Element

Creating the mask

Now you are ready to mask out everything on the video frames layers except the isolated movement.  Click on frame one and make sure only Layer 1 is marked as visible. Make a selection using your favorite method: in many instances a blurred or feathered edge will benefit the blending of the animation into the still image.

Now select Frame 2.  You can either make the selection again and add  a mask or copy the mask from the previous layer.

Make sure only Layer 2 (and the base layer) is visible.

Now copy your mask to the other layers.  You will have to go back and refine the mask to adjust for the movement on each layer.  To copy the mask, make sure the mask and not the image thumbnail is selected then hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and drag the mask up to the next layer.  Repeat for each layer.

Run step by step through the animation using the Animation panel.  Make sure the correct layers are displaying for each frame and make adjustments to your mask to reveal the moving element.  Keep testing and refining until it looks smooth.

Smooth the Repeat

If your first and last frames are not a smooth transition and the video jumps when it goes to repeat, duplicating the frames and reversing them can smooth some animations out.  Select all the frames in the Timeline, then click the Duplicates selected frames icon near the lower left of the timeline.  Now from the Animations panel’s flyout menu choose Reverse Frames.

Final Touches

Make any final touches on composition such as color adjustments to the still layer, Edge burning, text, watermarking.

Save as a Gif

When you are ready to save choose Save for Web.  In the dialog box select GIF as the format, set the colors to the highest setting, set your image size.  In the Animation options choose forever for Looping options (or other settings that fit your vision) then save, choose a file location and you are done.
Be sure to save the working file so you can come back to it and make changes.  You might want to adjust the animation speed or resize.

Preview your creation in a browser to see it in action.

Edited: December 11th, 2011

Manatee Photography Tips from my Manatee Photography Workshop Jan 2012

see more of my cinemagraphs and a tutorial on how to make them in a post  Cinemagraph Tutorial
I have only a few spots still open for my Manatee Photography Workshop in Crystal River,  FL  Jan 22 – 28th 2012.  Contact me soon to secure your spot.

We will be in the water nearly all day with the manatees which gives you plenty of time to practice your techniques and get some really great shots.  Unlike other underwater creatures that are gone in one exposure, manatees are slow and linger. Take advantage of this by planning each shot and doing some in the field analysis and learning from images you just made.

Getting a Great Shot of a Manatee Up for a Breath

The Situation:

There is a manatee asleep on the bottom near you.  Regulations say that you are not allowed to disturb them – especially diving down to get pictures of them asleep.  They can stay under for 10 minutes which is way to long to hover just underwater and wait. How do you get a good image of them coming up for a breath?

1) Choose a manatee who is facing such that there will be light on its face (not in the shade from a tree) and is preferably not facing such that you will be shooting into the sun.

2) Decide your angle; 3/4  shot, directly on, full side pose, vertical or horizontal camera position.  Scan what will be the background and plan to place undesirable elements like people behind the manatee or out of frame.

3) Get into position and float relaxed. Think about your settings, take test shots, adjust.  Take special note of the view of the sky through the water. The deeper you are the more sky will show. This may not be ideal.

4) When it is time, you will want to force some air out of your lungs which will make you sink a bit (you have already tested this and set your weights correctly). Push water up slowly but firmly with one hand to get you under – Do not move your legs or you will cloud your own picture and possibly freak out the manatee.

5) Watch the manatee. They usually have a “tell” when they are preparing to surface. Their body will rock a bit then begin to rise.  Exhale and sink, snapping pictures and keeping your body still and compact to limit movement.

6) snap shots  while the manatee is on the way up. Watch the framing of your shot to get the whole animal – nose to tail- in the shot.

7) Get a shot as he breaks the surface and takes in air. Then some on the way back down with the ripples on the surface.  The manatee may fall pretty fast.  Sometimes they dont get enough air and go right back up or linger.  Just hold your breath and be still .  Get the shot. You will have 10 minutes to rest and try again.

While you wait for the next breath examine your shots. Make a new plan.  Try a different manatee if this one is not in a good spot.

Edited: December 10th, 2011

Improving a Lion Shot: Three techniques to correct an image with limited color range

Gurushots.com is a sight where you can purchase a critique from professional photographers. This is a recent critique I did for a client for a shot of a lion. The image similar to many shots in my collection and displays many of the same issues with color and contrast that I discuss in the critique. I thought it would be fun and helpful to demonstrate the different processing suggestions I made in the Gurushots critique.

The Challenge in this Image
In wildlife photography one challenge we face is that our subjects have markings and colors designed to blend into their surroundings. We want to catch them during natural behaviors and they do this in the environs where they blend it best. When we load in our photos the subject, in this case a lion, blends into the background and the whole photo has a monochromatic feel. It didn’t seem so bad while we were watching the action unfold and taking the photograph because our brain uses movement and shape to distinguish the subject for us. The camera has no such smarts so we will have to tweak the photo to bring separation between the subject and the background.

This image of a juvenile male lion was taken around mid day and the histogram shows an even bell curve but with a narrow distribution of darks and lights. There is more range to be added in both the highlights and shadows. One of the first adjustments will be to introduce contrast.

Processing – 3 Options

For this discussion I will only use the non- destructive tools in the Lightroom Develop Module. All of these goals can be achieved in Photoshop, plus some more advanced and targeted adjustments that would involve masks or using advanced curve adjustments in color spaces such as LAB mode. For now let us just experience the possibilities using controls in Lightroom.

Adjust Contrast and Range of Color

In my workflow I always adjust for optimum lighting and range of contrast first. Often what seems to be a color problem at first is improved with a Curves adjustment. Curves is the best tool to use and offers greater control over other less refined and “blunt” sliders such as “contrast”.

I first eliminate the distraction of color by temporarily desaturating the image. I then use the histogram and the number values of specific samples around the image to set an optimum “S” curve “by the numbers”. After I let just my eyes take over and tweak the adjustment to where I think it looks good.

In this image I set the nose and nostrils as true black with the mouth and tuft at the tail as nearly true black. The inside of the ear would be yet a few more units brighter than full black. For the highlights, the chin fur and light patch under the eye are the closest thing to full white in the image, but I do not want to make them full white since in nature they are not completely white. I raise them up a bit and wait until I place the color back into the mix to make a final decision.

Now I like the overall range and it is time to address midtone contrast. I want specifically more variation in the darks and medium darks in the lower mane. I use the Direct Adjustment Tool again right on the image to push up the light tuft of fur in the mane and push the darker patch down a less amount. The overall curve is now a flat almost “S”. Restore the color and see what has changed.

The color uniformity is still there, but the image has an overall richness that was not present at the start.

Overall the tone is too warm so I do a slight White Balance adjustment to a cooler temperature. Now I switch to using the HSL controls which gives you eight colors and 3 controls for each color: Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity. Studying the picture, the lion has a big more orange to him and the grass a bit more yellow. Using these two sliders I can increase those differences to pop the subject out from the background. I shifted the Yellow range toward the green Hue and the Orange toward the red Hue. I also desaturated the yellows a little and saturated the oranges a slight amount. I didn’t adjust the Luminescence this time but often this adjustment helps in building color contrasts.

Try Black and White or Sepia

This type of image easily translates into a black and white image. I simply deepen the blacks further and brighten the lighter tones. Remember when I didn’t take the chin and under the eye to full white? Now I will make them a true white point since black and white demands both a real black and a real white. A vignette looks good to draw the eye to the subject.

I like a tinted monochrome look better. It is easy to find a tint you like by placing the Saturation Slider at about 80% desaturated then using the White Balance adjustment for a simple tint or use the same HSL color sliders to fine tune your tint. In this version I saturated yellow and orange, Shifted the orange hue toward yellow, and warmed the White Balance Temperature a few stops warmer than how it was shot (in the full color version I cooled the White Balance – this needed the opposite) The result was a nice grayish brown reminiscent of colors that were present in the full color version. It also has a classic natural and aged look to it.

Take it up a Level with Split Toning
Lightroom has some nice monochrome presets to get you thinking creatively. Many of them use split tones /duotone which is a way of choosing one color for the shadows and a different for the highlights.
For this split tone treatment I went a bit extreme to demonstrate the effect. The shadows are done in a red tone and the highlights are done in a lime green. The images 100% desaturated and the white balance is set as shot. I reversed the vignette effect to bleach out to the edges. To go even further, in Photoshop you can go under Mode-Duotone and play with up to 4 tones in your black and white mode image.

An image that begins as a monochrome color cast image can be made to excel when the contrast it optimized and colors are tweaked to bring back color contrast and variety. African wildlife images are great for creative black and white and tinted treatments.

Edited: December 2nd, 2011

Managing Your Digital Image Assets

Guests on our safaris can get  overwhelmed by the volume of images they shoot on our trip.  It is important to have a system in place for storing and backing up image files.  Equally important is a method of triaging and cataloging images that gets your photos quickly into  a state whereby you can review them each day.  I believe reviewing good and bad images after each session speeds the learning process and gives the photographer the best chance of improving (and sometimes redeeming themselves)  while still on safari.  The view screens and information provided on the camera are good and can allow you to make quick technical adjustments during the shoot, but it is not a replacement for the cool-headed technical and artistic analysis that can only happen on a larger screen and when you are calm and settled back at the lodge.

I recommend taking a look at a book by Peter Kough The Dam Book – Digital Asset Management for Photographers
He discusses the whys and hows of digital asset management. He is also a frequent presenter at Photoshop World Conferences.

Some preplanning and education before the trip will make the daunting task of sifting and learning from your new treasure trove of images quicker and more productive. Three major things need to be in place before travel as a foundation to keep you organized.

File Folder Storage Structure (on the hard drive)

My file folder structure is not designed to organize the files by topic, shoot, or trip: I rely on my cataloging software to do this for me and point me to the storage location when I need the file.  Instead my folders of raw images are numbered in sequence and code for the range of shooting dates contained within. They are sized to be  10GB or less for ease of moving them around and backing up

Image File naming

I rename all of my RAW images (btw I only shoot RAW).  There are many reasons to do this including:

No chance of duplicate file names between different cameras and photographers (such as my wife’s images)

The file name encodes basic information that is apparent just by looking at the file name (who shot the image, sequence, and date)

You can formulate a naming scheme to fit your needs and use presets to apply the name on each import automatically.

Cataloguing and Organizational Software Tools

If you are serious enough about photography to go on a photo safari you will need more than your operating system’s file browser to manage you photo collection.  Adobe is not the only company making photo cataloging software, but their Lightroom, Bridge, and Photoshop programs are excellent and deep with features and they work well with other photo finishing packages such as the suite of products by Nik Software .  A product like Lightroom acts like a database giving you access to all of the information stored by the camera as well as information you add such as key words, named collections you create, ratings, flagged images. They even  give you a full set of nondestructive tools to correct the image, import , print, and export, and even make a slideshow or web gallery.

Once these elements are in place you can create presets to use as you load off your memory cards and some that automatically do some image correction (like white balance).  Using presets and a structured data plan   will make saving and preprocessing after a shoot a no –brainer and a simple task.

If you have a step by step process to follow your photos will be neatly organized and safely backed up very quickly. Your process can also expedite the culling and review of the images.

My process for dealing with the mass of images while on safari

Create a backup on a backup drive right away

Memory card goes in card reader and files are copied to a portable backup drive attached to the computer. (this is a full backup copy)

Copy images from memory card to the computer

The memory card gets copied to the computer hard drive (this is the working copy)

Load images into Lightroom (or other catalogue software) and apply data

While the files are copied they are renamed, converted to DNG,  and imported into Lightroom with basic metadata (keywords and location data)

Start the review process

Cull out the photos that are technically deficient – Taking the time to analyse why they are bad.  Consider keeping some of these in a special collection to study and learn from.

Apply more keywords (such as animal names), sort images into logical collection groups, rating, and finally some minimal correction.

The goal of this first pass is to triage only based on technical merits.  The most beautifully composed blurry photo is useless except as a learning tool and a motivation to get it right next time.  I also quickly move through the keywording without getting distracted by the images.  Keywording  and location data is boring for me, but vital in a large catalogue so I push through it and just get it done as fast as possible.  If I start enjoying the images and playing with adjustments I will never get the data phase done.  Just do it and get it over with.  I will add more metadata in the future to best images.

Now it gets more enjoyable on the second pass.  I have many images and need to find the best ones quickly for a client or the website and spend the most time on only those images.   I go through all images again this time with an eye for technical and artistic merit.  Now that I have keywords I can do some sorting by animals or other content. After this pass all images not marked for deletion get a rating of  1 stars.  A few of the stand out images will get 2 stars.

If time is short I can get right to the job of studying what went wronged or right and whether I got the angle or action that I wanted.  I can make my checklist and wish list for the next shoot.  If I have time I can continue with the rating and sorting.

The second pass analyses the 1 star images and elevates some to 2 stars (above the established average).  I do not generally  mark any more for deletion.  I then go through the 2 stars and elevate some to 3 stars.

I permanently delete the marked files from the hard drive.  I will make a backup based on the working files.  Eventually I will delete that first backup, but not until I am home and have worked with the files for a while  it make sure nothing is missing or mistakenly deleted.

Edited: October 27th, 2011

Wildlife as a Cinemagraph

Cheetah Cinemagraph

I have been looking for ways to use the video capability of my  Canon 5DMKII without launching  into full video editing.  I just do not have the time to do all of that editing. I have started making “cinemagraphs” : still photos with a small subtle element of movement.  They are time consuming, but I am hoping to get more skilled and efficient as a overcome the learning curve.

The movement is a few frames of video masked into the still image.

Making these with wild animal images is challenging because the subject does not stay still like an inanimate object or a human model .

This latest effort too alot of time because I was using quite a long video clip. Each frame has to be masked so by the time I had perfected the masks, I had iterrated through my 49 frames (layers) several times.

In my next attempt  I will use  a tripod: Photoshop can make up for camera shake, but it is a long render.  I am still trying to figure out how to do this for an underwater image where the fish is not still and a tripod is impossible.

My first endeavor is this blinking lion cub. I look forward to having a whole gallery of these fun images.

Edited: October 11th, 2011

Look for the Picture within a Picture

I have been playing around with cropping lately and practicing techniques to turn mediocre pictures into great pictures.

This elephant photo in its original form is not a great composition.  I was concentrating on the baby elephant hoping he would do something fun and cute and I didnt really pay attention to the very touching interaction between the large female and the juvenile elephant.

Some lighting and color correction and a crop with a vignette all completed in Lightroom gives me a very nice portrait with lots of warm fuzzy motherly vib.

Don’t disregard a photo before examining it closely for details and emotions you did not know were in there.

Edited: October 7th, 2011

My Tribute to Steve Jobs

With all the world celebrating and reflecting on how Steve Jobs has changed our world and our individual lives, I though I should also record how he influenced my life.

In 1978 as a geeky 7th grader still high on Star Wars I joined an experimental class at my school to learn programming on a personal computer – an early Apple.  I was already firmly in Bill Gates’ camp since my dad had a TRS 80 and I knew how to write programs for it.  Steve was credited by many as presenting consumers with products that seemed to foreshadow the future and with this early version I experienced what the future would be like with color and animation.

My first program of a colored horse walking across the screen proved to me that art and computers can and will coexist in the future.  In grad school I built a neuro network  artificial intelligence  program in the super chilled university computer lab all decked out with mac’s

I write this from an Apple 8-core machine, pass the time doing boring chores listening to books on my iPod, and plan how to publish a photography book for the iPad.

Thank you Steve Jobs for keeping me hungry for what will be possible.

- Karen

Edited: October 6th, 2011

What is a Cinemagraph?

A cinemagraph is a cool new technique to add subtle movement to a still photograph.

This image was created by taking video frames from my Canon 5DMKII  into Photoshop where they became layers.   I used making to limit the movement to just the eyes in a  just a few frames of animation.  The finished product is saved as an animated .gif file.  Working with a model that doesnt understand English and without a tripod made this challenging but I plan to do further work on these as I like the possibilities for using the video feature of my camera for something a bit non traditional (and less time consuming than video editing!)

To see some other cinemagraphs form the fashion and advertising world:  http://turnstylenews.com/2011/04/20/so-long-animated-gifs-hello-cinemagraph/

Edited: September 6th, 2011

Using B&W Conversion to Enhance the Subject and Composition of an Image

Occasionally the color in an image can distract away from the real topic.   In this image of two elephants, I want to present the contrast in size between the two, the interesting shapes of their bodies, and the details on their skin.  The fact that they are grey  and the background is bright and colored is an obstacle .  My goal is to desaturate the colors of the background and enhance the exposure and color of the elephants in order to make their shape and details grab the eye of the viewer.

My first step is to get the light and contrast right on the elephants.    I like to make my corrections  with the color saturation set to desaturate.   This focuses my attention to black, white, and grey, and I am not distracted by color issues.  Ignoring the background which will get its own treatment, I optimize the elephants using the Tone Curve.  The image is a little overexposed, so I darken the shadows quite a bit.  I take it rather dark because I want a high contrast look.  The “darks” – the darker midtones,  need a  boost in order to show all the details of the hide.  The lights and highlights are adjusted down slightly to compensate for the harsh sunlight coming off the background.  One adjustment for the background is to move the Recovery slider about half way.  This will help with the blown hightlight in the sky and temper the edges of the elephants head.  I like the added contrast from a small touch of the Blacks slider which sets the black point.  I am in effect taking away some shadow details here by setting all of the those tones of black to true black – but I like this look for this image.  I restore the color by setting the Saturation slider back to neutral. I know I have the adjustments right, but colors make it look  awful but I am about to fix that.

I know I want a “cream tone” effect for this photo similar to a preset that comes in Lightroom.  The color ranges I do not need are Green, Aqua, Blue, Purple, and Magenta  because they play no part in this sepia effect so I go to the HSL panel and set the saturation of these colors to -100 (fully desaturated).  That took care of the unwanted green the background, but it is not yet what I want.  My final cream-like tone will contain some red, yellow, and orange. Through experimentation I discovered I did not need Orange so I set that slider to desaturated and set the Yellow and Red to -50.  Now I have an image that has a correct black to white tonal range and is almost fully desaturated of color except for Red and Yellow which as half desaturated.

Now I will use the White Balance tool to turn some areas of white or light grey to my only remaining colors: red and yellow creating the cream colored cast.  Sliding Color Temperature to the warm side fills yellow tones into the grass and trees.  The elephants have quite a bit of red in the color of their hide (they are not neutral grey) so sliding the Tint away from the magenta side improves the look of the elephants and makes them stand out from the background by way of a separation of color tones.  Now I can make some fine adjustments to the Tone Curve. I could also do some sharpening to  bring out the texture of the foreground grass and as prep for printing, but I am going to add an effect using Photoshop instead.

I right-click and choose Edit in PS to open the image in Photoshop.   I make two copies of the image on layers, one I convert to a Smart Object and the other I place on top of this layer and turn off the visibility for now.  The filter I want is Poster Edges.  I also like the look of Fresco for this type of image.  I adjust the options to give me a high posterization level and low intensity and small thickness.  The effect is a sketched in effect on the texture of the elephant’s skin further emphasizing the detail and giving an aged look to the photo.  The only drawback is that it effects the background and since this whole exercise was to deemphasize the backgroud I will need to use a mask to limit the filter effect to just the subjects and foreground. This is done by using the original on the layer that I placed above the filter layer. I make this layer visible, add a mask and hide  the areas with the elephants and foreground allowing just the unposterized background to show.  Back on the filter layer, I fine tune the filter effect by masking out  at less that 100% some areas that I thought had gained too much detail.

By converting this image to a black and white I have transformed a picture of two really cute elephants in a good composition which had exposure and color issues to an image which highlights to shapes and textures of the animals without distracting elements.  A filter in Photoshop takes this vision a few steps further.

Edited: August 28th, 2011

Photo Critiques Website

www.Gurushots.com is a new website venture that offers photo critiques by professionals. Users upload a photo and then selects a professional in an appropriate niche.
I was hired for a critique of a lion photo. Despite being taken is a zoo, it was very reminiscent of some of the photos my guests achieve while on safari. The comments I made may be of interest to other wildlife photographers and the techniques I suggest are ones I have discussed while on safari, here in my blog (check the category “Techniques”) or rate high on my list of topics to present on the blog.
I hope this site and/or this critique will be useful

http://www.gurushots.com/view_feedback.php?job_id=1913

Participating in this site has had benefits for me as well as the clients. I find writing the critiques forces me to find proper words to express what I see in photographic images and makes me critical of my own work. I am reminded to always think of the basics of technique and composition and to be sure about what I do to photos and why. So far is has been a positive experience.

Edited: July 28th, 2011

Using Graduated Filter Tool to Enhance the Sky

A great photo opportunity does not always come with proper lighting and a cooperative subject or when you are 100% ready.

The Graduated Filter Tool in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom 3 is a terrific tool for improving a shot with a lack-luster sky. The tool can do more than just brighten or darken a sky you can control saturation, color, sharpness, and contrast at the same time. The bonus is that you can return and adjust your filter and that the filter blends seamlessly unlike other correction tools which can show edges.

This picture of a fish eagle taking flight toward the sunset and mountains could be better.

After some slight standard adjustments to the Curves and an adjustment brush stroke on the white tail was all that was needed before working on the Graduated Filter.

The sky needs darkening and could benefit from some contrast in the colors and clouds. I opened the Graduated Filter Tool and set the Exposure and Brightness down a few steps.  These initial settings are guesses and can be adjusted later.  To enhance the sunset I also increase the Contrast , Saturation, and Clarity.   Decreasing the Clarity is a good way to soften clouds, but that is not what I want here.

I take the tool onto the image starting at the top which is where I want the most effect from the filter and drag it down  to the trees in the foreground.  Now I can go back to the sliders and refine the effect to exactly what I want.  I then add a second Graduated Filter for just Exposure that starts at the bottom and goes up just far enough to darken the foreground trees.

The final touch is to add Post Crop Vignette to darken the corners some more and bring the attention to the center.

It is also fun with a sunset image to play with the color of the filter.  Below the sliders you will find a square which represents the color of the filter. Click on it and select a color.

Edited: June 26th, 2011

Photoshop Fun – Group Shot

Presenting our May 2011 group!

I had inspiration for this picture and would like to make this a tradition on each safari.  I can image the lodge with a whole wall of these pictures bringing back great memories.  The animals were chosen for significance to this particular safari: The baby lion we saw on our second to last day, the nice male lion who roared for us at sunset, the zebras who blocked access to the tree houses, the tortoise who was a model for us, and the rhino mother and baby from one of the best game drives we had.

I brief run through of how I did this:

This was a straight collage exercise using nothing more fancy than selection tools, eraser, clone stamp, and copy paste.   Next time I may use individual shots of the guests. Maybe have them model pith helmets and vintage clothes…

First I selected animal shots that fit the group photo and corrected the light on them to make them fit in. Then I took a rough selection of the animal and pasted it into the group shot and used masks to clean up around them and to set them correctly infront or behind objects.

When I had a clean color version I used Lightroom to work creatively to get the aged vintage look I wanted.  In the Developement module I used the preset “cream tone”  but customized it by slightly changing the saturation of some colors such as green and yellow.

Back in Photoshop I added the framing and text.

Edited: June 12th, 2011

Using The Content Aware Scale Tool in Photoshop CS5 as a Crop Tool

Cropping is a great creative tool that can take an average and turn it into a dramatic piece of art.  Cropping for creativity involves cutting out certain parts of the image that are distracting because they do not add to the story or to better define for the viewer what you feel is the important part of the image.

I have found that when printing and displaying images, I want to have more neutral areas around the image than I do when I am displaying digitally.   When printing on canvas, the need for neutral or negative space around the image is doubly important because you will need this  material to create the wrap around the edges.

Every so often I take an image and the subject does not have what I feel to be enough space around it to create the image I want either for digital display or for print.  This puts me is a situation doing a sort of “reverse crop” whereby I need to add negative space around the image.  In some cases I am trying to rearrange an image from portrait orientation to landscape or reverse.

I do all of my preparation for printing in Photoshop because of the ability to save layers (which allows me to come back and selectively change adjustments in the future) and the  specialized and specific tools.  In earlier versions I had to use tools such as the clone tool, free transform,  and the patch tool to  add back in the neutral space I desired.  This was a very detailed, tedious,  unforgiving process.

In the new version of Photoshop CS5, they have created a very smart tool that takes most of the pain out of the process of  reorientation and adding sufficient negative space.

By far the best remedy is to be conscious of your entire viewfinder and edges while shooting, but if this has failed begin by opening the image in Photoshop CS5 and duplicate the background layer.  Use the Image – Canvas Size to set your desired final size.  It might be useful to do a trial using a jpg or smaller resolution file first because it will save processor time and energy.  If you wish to add space on more than one side of the image, you may want to work on one side first than the others.

The tool you will be using is Content Aware Scale (under the Edit Menu near Free Transform). It works by using built in logic to determine what is the subject matter and preserves it while recreating the background and nonsubject materials to it the new canvas size.  Of course it will work best when the subject(s) contrast to the surroundings, but you can help the tool protect important parts by telling it what parts to protect.

Protecting subject matter involves making a selection by what ever method you  prefer and saving the selection as a channel (Select – Save Selection).  You then specify this channel in the Protect  box.  The results might be perfect as is or you can then use some Clone Tool to finish it.

I tried this tool and method on 3 different images.  Two produced satisfying results but the third produced grass that was stretched and distorted.

Using the Content Aware Scale tool saves me hours of detailed work to “reverse crop” my images before printing.

Edited: June 4th, 2011

Shifting Background Color to Highlight your Subject

Often I am photographing animals that are coloured in natural tones or neutrals.  While the tones and textures are always interesting, sometimes the background colours distract away from the beauty of my subject.  Manatees, dolphins, and whales in my underwater photography have this problem, but I also have this situation with African birds and mammals.

I have been working with ways to improve the processing of these types of photos so that I get an image that draws the viewer to the special features of the subject .

Here I have two photos of African birds: the lilac breasted roller and the grey hornbill.  Both photos feature a brilliant clear blue sky, but unlike the very flashy roller, the grey hornbill does not grab the eye because the colourful sky is such a contrast to the neutrals of the bird.

My basic technique is to mute down just the blue in this photo.  There are multiple ways to do this in Photoshop, Lightroom, and other tools, but each will boil down to the same basic change.

After a small adjustment to the Exposure Curve,  I accessed the tool (in this case Color in Lightroom’s Development Module) which gives me access to the three aspects of  color – Hue, Saturation, and Luminance  for each of the 8 ranges of color (red, orange, yellow, etc)

The grey hornbill has no blue pigment on him, so I did not need to do any selection to limit my changes only to the sky.  If this was the case, I would probably choose to use the advanced selection tools and options in Photoshop rather than Lightroom.

I worked with just the Blue sliders (not Aqua).  I could have desaturated the blue in the sky, but this would move it toward white. The better choice is to brighten the sky using the Luminance.  I also Saturated the blue to keep some color in there and shifted the Hue a few points to the right toward a more purple blue just because I preferred this .

Now the Grey Hornbill is the centre of interest and one can note the texture of the feathers and the subtle coloration.

A simple balancing of elements in the image can turn a average photo into a brilliant and intimate portrait.

Edited: May 28th, 2011

Using Lightroom’s more advanced tools to clean and image

Lightroom has some great editing tools in their Develop module, but I found myself always going for the first couple of tools (White Balance, Exposure).  These are the simplest and most basic adjustments, but if you venture down the list you will find tools that achieve similar goals, but with more refinement.

On this photo of a running cheetah I challenged myself to enhance the photo without using white balance and exposure.

Since the photo is a bit flat and color was washed out  I tried pushing the Recovery slider up. Recovery is a great tool for restoring color to washed out skies. In this photo I was happy to see that it restored much of the colors especially in the red spectrum.  Next I wanted to darken the blacks . I could have used either the Black Clipping slider or the Shadows on the tone curve.  I used the tone curve and at the same time increased the Highlights a touch to bring out the white in the cheetah’s face and belly.

To help pop the cheetah out away from the similar colored background, I went way down into the color balance tools.   The biggest change I made was to the Luminance of the Orange range. This change darkened the soil around the cheetah and on the opposite bank creating a contrast between the cat’s color and the background immediately around the cat.  I also pushed the orange slightly to the left into the redder part of its range and pushed the yellow hues (which appear in the fur a bit) a tiny bit toward the yellow/green shades to further distinguish the cheetah from the soil.

The final touch was a little bump up in the Tone Curve of the lighter midtowns (Lights) to add light to the cheetah and a small increase in the clarity which is always my favourite for bringing out details.

By avoiding obvious correction tools I achieved a very satisfactory result and challenged myself to use the colors in the image to make more specific adjustments.  In Photoshop I would have used a different technique involving the LAB color space, but Lightroom provides non-destructive tools that are up to the challenge of difficult images.

Edited: May 9th, 2011

Photo of the Day: Lilac Breasted Roller

A Lilac Breasted Roller  spotted sitting on a dead branch near the side of the road.

Canon EOS  5D Mark II

1/1000 sec at f11

ISO 320  (cloudy day)

Lens: EF300mm f 2.8 IS lens with 2.0x teleconverter

In Lightroom I brightened the midtowns and  used the clarity (midtone contrast) adjuster and increased the Vibrancy (a saturation adjustment with logic to protect certain colors). Cropped to portrait dimensions.

Edited: May 5th, 2011

Things I will be reminding myself of before and during my next wildlife shoot

As I prepare to travel over to my lodge in South Africa my next safari group, I am reviewing my photos and mentally putting together of list of photographic goals.  While the goals always include the ultimate leopard shot and a rare anteater, it also includes some back to basics.  I resolve to have a mental checklist running through  my head I am shooting of things to do and not do.

(This post is punctuated with images from my Birds of Kruger Collection)

Be Ready to get that action shot

Knowing the animal helps here. If their pattern is to look for a second then flee (such as a kudu) this knowledge can help you be ready. Also being fast to read the lighting conditions, make the settings, and bring the camera up will help you get that 1 or 2 shots before the shy creature bolts away.  After leaving an encounter, anticipate an action shot and reset your camera before arriving at the next animal sighting – this way you are ready if the cheetah runs or you can dial down if it is going to be napping and you have all day to get the shot.

Aim to Capture a Mood, Emotion, or concept

Photos that convey an emotion or mood  have impact. Here again  knowing the animal  (does it groom a partner, keep its babies close, or kick another who gets too close ) will give you foreknowledge to watch for signals and anticipate behavior that once put on film will create a powerful concept or mood.  Watching and observing and patience are the best way to get these compelling images.

Be conscious of everything in the frame

It is so easy to just concentrate on the very interesting animal you are lucky to have found and not take into account what is in the foreground or background.  Many times you have no choice , but in other situations there may be some options for you when composing the shot

Compose against a background of contrasting color
Lower your position to get a background of sky instead of trees
Make sure the horizon line does not cut through the subject

Isolate with a longer lens or post processing cropping

Adjust settings to achieve a depth of field which yields a smooth out of focus background

Change your perspective and position to eliminate distracting elements  at least until the subject chooses a different position.
Check the edges

Before taking a picture, do a visual lap around the edges of the viewfinder to check for things that can be eliminated by a simple composition.

Know what you want or need before heading out

I also keyword my images for action, emotion, colors, mood, behaviors , side vs front views, etc .  Lightroom allows me to take stock of my images by keywords and I can easily see  what is underrepresented in the collection.  Sometimes I am surprised to find I am lacking key shots for a very common animal.

Shooting wildlife is exciting, but we must not let that distract us from thinking our way through the shots.  Knowing your goals and thinking creatively throughout the whole photography process will take your photos to another level

Edited: April 1st, 2011

A Bald Eagle Nest in my Neighborhood

I found this bald eagle nest near my house this week.  Of course it is really high up, but as nests go it is not too obstructed where the mother sits.  The actual nest is pretty well obscured from all of the angles I can reach.  I was able to see two nestlings sitting at opposite ends.  They where feathered and worked their wings like they are just starting to strengthen them for flight.  I am hopeful that since they have both made it to this age, that both chicks will make it to be young adults.

They provided a nice  change from the more common osprey nests which are everywhere around here.

I used my Canon 5D MK II with a Canon 300mm F2.8 with a  2x teleconverter and Gitzo tripod

Edited: March 29th, 2011

Adjusting Color can add Artistic Effect

On this photo of a cheetah I wanted to give it a classic black and white / sepia feel. To achieve this I had to use more than just the Desaturation slider – I accessed the individual color adjustments and desaturated all but some yellows, oranges, red, and magenta.  The overall effect is to draw attention to the cheetah’s shape, the negative space, and the pattern on the pelt.

Edited: January 28th, 2011

Photographing the Lunar Eclipse

I took this with my Canon 5D MKII and a Canon 300mm F2.8 IS , 2x tele converter , GITZO Tripod GT2531 , Real Right Stuff ball head .

I started taking photos at 2 am until around 3:30 am when the eclipse was over so I didnt get any sleep that night.

Edited: December 22nd, 2010

Creating Star Trails

The night sky of South Africa is brilliant and free from light pollution. It is mesmerizing to see how many stars there are up there. I have always wanted to get an image of star trails above of my tree houses. This year I was going to do it.

With digital cameras it is not possible to leave the shutter open for hours like in the old days. A long exposure on a digital camera will cause the CMOS sensor will heat up. Instead your image will be a collage of many different exposures each capturing a star at a different position. You must use the timer and an interval that gives you an acceptable spacing between exposures that will still look like a complete streak after you do the Photoshop work.

Practice at Home Before the Trip

I started by practicing at home: this helped me refine and fine tune the number and timing of exposures to get the type of trials in my vision. Some of my settings did not give me long enough star trails; filling the image top to bottom when combined. Some of my settings gave 200 + images, but the intervals were either too small or too large. If the intervals between exposures was too large, the trail was a dotted line and if it was too small the trail was solid and bright, but short and could have been achieved with alot less images.

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Edited: October 27th, 2010

Review: The Better Beamer Flash Extender

Sometimes the simplest and least expensive products work the best.  Case in point is The  Better Beamer (www.naturescapes.net/store/home.php?cat=21) . It’s a flash extender that attaches to the strobe and concentrates and magnifies the light into a tight beam.  This gives your strobe the ability to reach out to your subjects when using a long lens.  If the subject is at a distance which requires a telephoto lens, the light from a small strobe could be pretty diffuse by the time it gets there having little or no fill flash effect, but the Better Beamer’s light concentrating ability helps with the distance problem.  The Beamer breaks down very flat for traveling and was pretty quick to assemble.   I am thoroughly happy with this small purchase as it enhanced my photos, packs small and light, and can light a hippo at dusk from a distance of 15m. I was surprised at how the animals seemed to be unfazed by the flash; if it caused an elephant to charge, I wouldn’t be here to give a review. Because I am so happy with this simple devise, I recommend that if you bring a strobe on your wildlife shoots, also pop the Better Beamer in your gear bag.

I am continually surprised by what this simple devise delivers and how it can deliver great shots even after sundown.

This was an experiment I did just out of curiosity – I can’t believe it worked this well!

Edited: October 27th, 2010

Take Control of Color with Custom White Balance Settings

White balance is the function in your camera or image software that removes an unrealistic color cast so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo.  Proper camera white balance has to take into account the “color temperature” of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light.  Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources; however digital cameras often have great difficulty with the auto white balance (AWB) setting.

Shooting in RAW format allows you to adjust white balance after the photo has been taken. Raw files also allow one to set the WB based on a broader range of color temperature (blue – yellow) and tint (green – magenta) shifts.  In your software, find and use a neutral reference to correct the white balance, then hand tune to your taste.

For situations where you anticipate auto white balance will encounter problems or you are noticing an undesired coloration, a neutral reference device is an easy tool to use and carry into the field with you.

There are two ways to use these devices
A) Take a photo of the device in the same light as your subject then use this photo in your software as the neutral reference for correcting the photo.  Copy the white balance correction to all of the photos from the shoot by using the synchronize function in your software or use the same temperature and tint settings in each photo from the shoot.

Open your RAW files in Adobe Camera Raw, select your reference photo first, then click on the other photos and select Synchronize from the upper left to apply the WB settings to the other photos.

B) Use the custom white balance feature on your camera.  Doing this involves taking a picture of the grey card in the same light as the  subject and the camera will use the resultant correction for all photos shot  while the WB function is set to “custom”.   You can change back and forth between WB functions and the “custom”  settings will hold until you take a new photo.

With each method you should retake the neutral reference  photo as the light changes throughout the day.

The Auto setting here misinterpreted the elephant’s color and added too much blue to the scene. A custom WB setting using a gray card rendered more accurate colors.

Custom white balance works best when you want color accuracy  as if the photo was shot under neutral light.   Custom white balance (and auto) is not a good choice when colored light  is an integral part of the photo such as in a sunset.  In this case you will need to experiment with  the presets on the camera or set your own color temperature.

The colors here using the Auto setting may be more accurate, but the mood is missing. The morning mood is conveyed in the warm colors which would have been lost if I had not controled my own WB settings.

Don’t let your camera make all of the decisions for you.  Auto white balance will not always make the best decision. Taking control of the color in your photos during the shoot should save you  time in post processing. An added benefit may be your greater attention to the  lighting conditions and how they are affecting the creative mood and technical  quality of your photos.

Edited: May 27th, 2010