Photo of the Day - Elephant in the Savute Channel
Monday, October 24, 2011 at 11:20AM
Elephant in the Savute Channel
Linyanti Concession, near Savuti Camp, Botswana. July 2011
Nikon D3x, 28-300mm, 1/2000 @ f/5.6, ISO 800. Processed in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Viveza 2
This was a very tricky image to process, I must say. I was shooting with my Nikon D3x that afternoon, and the camera isn’t well known for its high ISO capabilities. I needed to keep the ISO down, possibly 1600 or lower, but the main challenge was trying to balance blowing out the details in the sky with the deep shadows of my subject. I could only minimally process this image in Lightroom, and the bulk of the work was done in Nik Software’s Viveza 2. In Lightroom I only adjusted the white balance, exposure, black point and a small gradient on the sky. I brought the image into Photoshop as a smart object, which allowed me to go back to the original raw file to tweak some of those settings. In Viveza 2 I worked on tonal relationships, and the main thing I needed to work on was the exposure on the elephant. There was simply no way of getting detail in the sky with enough exposure on the elephant, at least from a global processing point of view. Viveza saves the day.
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Botswana, Elephant, Savuti, africa in Photo of the Day
Reader Comments (6)
I love that pic Andy. I totally understand the technical issues with post-processing that image. However, I am finding that my eyes go straight to the section of super-bright, blown-out sky above the elephant when I first see the image. Is there anyway to tone down the exposure of that section? Maybe post-process the RAW file twice and do some blending? Or use Viveza's U-point selection tool to slightly darken that blown-out sky section? Otherwise, I am just not finding it naturally easy to focus on the elephant. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for your thoughts, Andrew. Please notice that the image is already processed with Viveza with many control points. Any more points and the image breaks down and looks completely fake. Even though I can technically do what you suggest, I haven't seen the image work out the way I would want it to. It is just a creative thing.
I completely understand. I guess the old film days of a Singh-Ray "Galen Rowell" graduated ND filter might have helped tone down that sky assuming the line could be sufficiently hidden. I do have to say that I enjoy using Nik's U-point technology in Nikon "Crapture" NX2 to fix unintended dark areas in an otherwise well exposed image. I have shot a fair number of kids soccer images with the sun backlighting the action and thus the player faces are too dark. Though not perfect, at least I was able to recover some detail without the image looking too fake.
Theroblem is when a neutral density filter, digital or with glass, gets near the horizon. The horizon is actually brighter than the sky, and I don't like the unnatural look of anything other than what I have processed with this image. This is a creative decision, not a lack of understanding the tools available.
Andy, This is a great shot. Your processing skills are to be admired. Good stuff!
Great shot, Mr. Andy! Savute is indeed a great place to go game viewing and to see some elephants. Thanks for sharing this pic!