Tiger C&C

[indeedies]

Just wondering what everyone thought of this tiger. Shot at about 11:00 am. Would have liked to have gotten there a bit earlier but my wife was tagging along with the kid she nannies for.

ISO 640
1/500
F 4.5

 

[dyliebug2]

newbie here, but beautiful looking animal.

 

[ajkramer87]

Not a critque but my daughter stopped what she was doing, come to me and said kitty. Nice capture. Was he yawning?

 

[reznap]

Great focus, depth of field, exposure...

Bonus points for not showing any signs of the zoo.

 

[indeedies]

The little boy we brought along kept saying, "Kitty meow". And yes she was yawning. Is it obvious? I wanted to make it seem like she was growling :lmao:

 

[ajkramer87]

Lol no its not obvious. I read somewhere that if you wait until they yawn and shoot rapid shots you can get some good pictures. Just curious if this was the case.

 

[ghpham]

Nice. It looks like you caught him just right that he does seem like he is growling. Tack sharp....you shot this handheld? what lens? normally I would see some fence line, what happened to it?

 

[indeedies]

Lol no its not obvious. I read somewhere that if you wait until they yawn and shoot rapid shots you can get some good pictures. Just curious if this was the case.

Yep, 40 frames and this is the best lol.

 

[indeedies]

Nice. It looks like you caught him just right that he does seem like he is growling. Tack sharp....you shot this handheld? what lens? normally I would see some fence line, what happened to it?

I was shooting hand held with the 70-200 2.8. I was also spread eagle on the rail. No one could get within three feet of me and my elbows but I got the shot I was hoping for :lmao:

This enclosure is one of the largest (had to wait 20 minutes before she came down) and is easy to get images without fences. It slopes all the way down so as long as she's not right on the fence you can normally get something with a decent background. I felt bad for the others out there with their DSLR's snapping away. You could tell that quite a few were on Auto because that stupid little flash would pop up. I remember when...

 

[djmoonlight]

What a great capture..

The tiger looks like he just saw his enemy coming..

 

[Overread21]

flash would have helped a bit with this shot though - sadly the strong lighting is a major problem (esp when at zoos where many don't even open till 10am). The counter is to use flash to boost the light levels on most of the subject thus letting you expose more for the stronger highlights. I tend to find in such lighting I am often underexposing the shot (in aperture priority mode) by up to one stop and letting flash balance out the rest.

OF course one has to keep an eye on the subject as flash can sometimes be a major pain for the animals to put up with (and some even have no flash rules on the pen).

Other than that a sharp shot, good feeling snarling feeling from the cat and good pose. You might want to back of a little (if this was RAW) with the blacks slider as some of her darks are little a little too coal coloured rather than tiger black. Also play with the saturation controls and maybe desaturate the cyans only to lose that blue hue to the shadows

 

[reznap]

I felt bad for the others out there with their DSLR's snapping away. You could tell that quite a few were on Auto because that stupid little flash would pop up. I remember when...

Last time I went to the zoo there was a guy shooting a Canon EOS 7D with kit lens by the jellyfish tanks with the flash on. I asked if he wanted a hand with the settings but he just said it was his wife's camera and kept going. Oh well.

EDIT:

Also play with the saturation controls and maybe desaturate the cyans only to lose that blue hue to the shadows

Good eye...

 

[flashgordio]

cool...

 

[indeedies]

flash would have helped a bit with this shot though - sadly the strong lighting is a major problem (esp when at zoos where many don't even open till 10am). The counter is to use flash to boost the light levels on most of the subject thus letting you expose more for the stronger highlights. I tend to find in such lighting I am often underexposing the shot (in aperture priority mode) by up to one stop and letting flash balance out the rest.

OF course one has to keep an eye on the subject as flash can sometimes be a major pain for the animals to put up with (and some even have no flash rules on the pen).

Other than that a sharp shot, good feeling snarling feeling from the cat and good pose. You might want to back of a little (if this was RAW) with the blacks slider as some of her darks are little a little too coal coloured rather than tiger black. Also play with the saturation controls and maybe desaturate the cyans only to lose that blue hue to the shadows

Thanks! This is exactly the kind of critiquing I was looking for. As for the flash thing we were about thirty feet from the subject. I'm pretty positive that even my SB600 would have been incapable of filling in the shadows

I'll play with the blacks because I did throw those up. I've never messed with other colors before but I'll see what I can do in LR and then try again in PS.

Thanks again!

 

[Overread21]

You'd be surprised how far flash can reach sometimes - and you are realy only looking for it to give the shot a light lifting rather than being the dominant light source for the image. That framing with a 70-200mm even at 200mm should be easily within the flashes range to give some fill to the shot (though a more powerfull flash would be ideal).