Giraffe Landscape

Posted by pedz on Tue Feb 17, 2004 9:44 pm

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Specs: Canon 1Ds, 100-400mm @ 300mm, f/8 1/160s, no flash, spot metering? (hmmm)...

I've been showing this around to my friends today. This is typical of my process. When I first saw this picture I said "Yea"!!!. So I processed it and printed it out. Then over time I see things that bother me and I start to be wishy-washy about it.

My wishy-washy complaints are: the sky is too dark. the grass is too light, and the tops of the trees are too busy.

But when I show it to friends, they all have a strong positive reaction to it when they first see it. They frequently point out (with me asking) the things I just mentioned as positive attributes. So... I'm guessing my initial gut was true.

But I'll welcome your thoughts and comments.

I'm not sure how this is going to look reduced this small. I print it at 6x14in. So I *think* I did this so you can poke on the picture and it will take you to a version with twice the resolution.

No color adjustments have been done. I did adjust the contrast on this up to bring out the giraffes more -- and its obviously been cropped top and bottom.

Also -- I posted this as a "panorama" at 800 horizontal pixels but the verticle is less than 400. Is that o.k.?

Thank you very much,
Perry Smith

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pedz
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by Safariguy on Tue Feb 17, 2004 10:19 pm

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I am on the I like it side of the fence. The different poses of the girafes is kewl. I think that the dark sky has the feel of an imminent storm and looks as if wind is blowing the center palm trees.... I might crop just a bit more off the bottom... Anyway, it "feels" like Africa and I like it...

Cheers,

Jeff
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by Brandon Pittam on Tue Feb 17, 2004 10:28 pm

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Perry-

Is this a pano? If so how many pictures were stitched? I kind of got confused, but anyway. The only thing I noticed maybe is the sky, seems like you said too dark. What you can do possibly is a color selection of the sky and adjust the curves abit to bring the focus more on the giraffes. Just a suggestion. I like it though -B.P.

-B.P.

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by abiggs on Tue Feb 17, 2004 11:53 pm

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Perry-

I remember the sky being that dark, so I think the exposure on the sky is dead on. I would do a slight crop from the right hand side to get the giraffe out of the frame.

Cool shot!

Andy Biggs
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by DC on Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:08 am

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I think this is great. If I had a nit, it would be the two sitting down in the front. The standing giraffes all look the same way, with good seperation, but the sitting ones merge into ones standing behind them. I know there wasn't much you could do about that, and it's not a criticism, just a very minor nit on an otherwise excellent picture. Well done.

Dave
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by Carol Clarke on Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:57 am

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Nice shot! Just lose the one peeping in from the right. African light can be harsh except early morning and late afternoon.

It would be better with the ones laying down not merging with the standing animals, but you can't tell them to move!!

Overall it works well!

Carol Clarke
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the world will know peace"....Jimi Hendrix.

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by Phil Shaw on Wed Feb 18, 2004 9:34 am

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Nice bioscape. Andy has suggested cropping to remove the part giraffe intruding on the rhs of the frame and I would strong endorse that. For printing I would probably increase the contrast slightly using a further application of usm and perhaps tone down the grass in front by selecting with the lasso tool, opening curves and pulling down slightly to reduce the luminance value. I love the brooding sky and the bushy trees.

Best wishes

Phil Shaw
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by E.J. Peiker on Wed Feb 18, 2004 9:59 am

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I agree with your self critque but fortunately all of these shortcomings are easily fixed with a few minutes of Photoshop work. I like the picture very much!

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by NDCheryl on Wed Feb 18, 2004 12:47 pm

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Well done. the pano was a nice choice of format here. I also agree with the above critiques including yours and think a little more work in PS will make a good picture even better. Thanks for sharing.

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