Stripes and teeth (C&C if you like)

[adarklullaby]

Been a few weeks since I last visited here. Took these shots this weekend at a wild cat sanctuary I'm familiar with. Looking for some C&C on them. There's always room for improvement.

1. Up close and personal

2.

3. I like this one a lot. I only wish I hadn't cut off his chin or his ears. I just didn't have enough time to line the shot up. Also wish it were a little sharper.

4.

Thanks for looking and thanks for any input.

 

[Dominantly]

Numbers 3 & 4 are interesting, BUT you shot them both at f/5.6, which contributed to them being soft. By that I mean they are not the sharpest.
I would have shot them at something like f/8 to f/11.
The lighting on #3 is also off, it's a little dark, while #4 looks good.

 

[adarklullaby]

Thanks for the input Dom. I do agree that I could have used a different f stop. I tired to ask the tiger to hold on one second while I made adjustments but he didn't seem to want to cooperate for me. Perhaps in the future I'll get faster with making such adjustments where as right now I still have to think about what I'm doing to some degree.

 

[nala]

I like the composition in #4. Its cool how his body makes a diagonal through the photo and the trees provide a natural frame.

______

The Snappy Mama

 

[Overread]

1 and 2: I like where you are going with both, selective presentation of the animals body rather than the whole. I would work on this because it can work very well, however I feel that both shots, whilst appealing (kind of) to one like myself, I feel will fail to a wider audience (esp non-cat fans ). Do keep trying and experimenting!

3

Great minds think alike! Even if we are both met with some slight failings
You have captured a fantastic stare from the cat, eyes wide open and looking right at you and the sun has also been clouded over (or the cat is walking in shade) because the light has softened a lot (fantstic for getting those white patches exposed with details rather than overexposing). However you are zoomed a bit too close and you've clipped his jaw. Ears not as bad for a feline as his face his far bigger (say to comparing it to a wolf or dog) but still yes to have them as well would have been nice. Do try waiting for longer as I have noticed that big cats will often pace/patrol around their pens and he might very well come back several times following the same rout and let you get another chance.
It is a tricky shot to get with him moving toward you the whole time - even for auto focus it can be a challenge if the cat moves fast enough (pacing speed it should be fine though).
Sharpness though has suffered, I'll address that in a sec.

Shot 4 Love his snarl and you've got the whole cat in shot with that powerfull front paw - makes for a more powerfull shot overall. I would cut a bit from the left of the shot, I see where you are going with both trees framing the cat, but his motion and angle are all heading right, so the shot needs to head right as well - cropping away some of the left helps give it a right lean (if you get my meaning).

Lighting has however got a bit harsher which has sent his whites into overexposing and also shadowed his eyes quite heavily. The only counter to this is fill flash (yes flash - there is no way he's going to let you get in there with a reflector to direct some light ) A small shot of fill flash to help just light his eyes up a little more - you still want the shadow, but just not quite as much. A lower angle might have worked, but I quite like it as it is.

With the shot you have if you shot RAW give the thread below a read and you might be able to claw back some of those highlights.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...93693-tricks-using-raw-dont-burn-results.html

It's a good method for wildlife I find since fur and feather both like to blow out very easily.

Sharpness side of things and aperture - f5.6 is a good starting point for animals at closer ranges as it normally dose a decent job of getting eyes and some of the nose in focus. f8 is the most I tend to go to and then mostly on close shots simply as otherwise you are going to have more background affecting the shot. Often that is not a problem, but in shot 4 it would be as the bars are already appearing at f5.6 - hit f8 and they will be getting far clearer. Smaller apertures (bigger f numbers) will also impact your shutter speed - damaging for motion capture as well as countering handshake. Generally I would not go as high as f11 for wildlife unless I was going for a very specific shot and a need for a deep depth of field and either had a very static subject or a heck of a lot of light to work with.

Which brings me to tripods - they slow you down a bit but they can be a great help (if you don't have image stabalization in camera or in lens) in countering handshake when shooting with longer focal lengths.

Overall I really like what I see here and you are getting off to a good start here and keep going!

 

[PerfectlyFlawed]

love #4! Awesome

 

[BekahAura]

I also think #4 is your best shot. I love it.

If you were shooting in the wild it would be a good idea to make the aperture smaller to get a sharper image and more DoF, but in this case I think you did the best you could.

In the top left corner of #4 I see a little bit of the fence that is in the background, and if that background were in focus it would really take away from the image. I think you did an excellent job of getting the tiger in focus and blurring the background enough to keep most of the fence blurred out.

Bekah