Dotty, Striking a Pose !

[haseeb badar]

• Canon EOS 5D Mark III
• EF500mm f/4L IS II USM
• ƒ/5.6
• 500mm
• 1/2000s
• ISO 4000
• Flash not fired
• Wed, 13 April 2016 5:51 PM
• Digital Photo Professional

Hello everyone. Thank you for your comments and suggestions to my previous posting, as always much appreciated.

I have some tiger images from my previous trips , which I am yet to post on BPN . So I thought , what better time to post than now, with newly acquired PP skills and no trips to make for creating new images , it is better to post from archives.

This female is from Bandhavgarh and is referred as Dotty, because of a distinctive "D" mark on her forehead. She also has a sister named Spotty because of a "S" mark on her forehead. Dotty has a huge territory to herself and has recently raised a litter of three male cubs to adulthood. During this period(when this image was created), she was on her way to chalk out her territory and find a mate. This particular image was made in her sisters territory at that time, but luckily they never came to loggerheads at that point of time while they were both looking for new bastions and mates.

Over the years, I have really been fortunate to sight Dotty and photograph her, though on my last trip she was just sighted once but her cubs made up for that.

Keeping in mind the recent events at Bandhavgarh, where a female tigress named Solo, died of poisoning along with one of her cubs from a litter of four, I sincerely hope Dotty is doing fine and that she once again manages to raise a new litter because with Bandhavgarh there is always a bad news in store as there are numerous villages and villagers that come in conflict with these tigers of Bandhavgarh and ultimately the looser is the Big and Beautiful striped Cat.

DPP 4.12, PSCC 2020, WB, curves, levels, selective colour, hue/sat/vib, sharpened the subject selectively, cropped slightly from top and Lhs.

Canon 5D Mk III, Canon 500m f4 IS II, Bean Bag.

ss 1/2000, f /5.6, iso 4000.

Your comments and suggestions of any nature are most welcome.

Haseeb.

 

[Jonathan Ashton]

A beautiful image Haseeb, I like as presented but I have a suspicion it is just a little cold, it may help to add a very subtle vignette.

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Haseeb a super cool and clean image .
I do like the look up of the tigress a lot !!!
What made her look into that direction ???
You have come a long way ... but finally you are getting there to deal with the PP work :5
If this was mine , I might think about a more decentralized crop and lightening the dark tree stump .... ( but gently ) . Crop wise I might crop from bottom and LHS as far as the IQ does allow .
Color is always a subjective thing .... for me the oranges are a tiny bit strong .
I do not think ... that the image is a little cold , as per Jon´s comment .

Nice one , TFS Andreas

 

[John Mack]

I like this one. Nice low angle. Detail is great as well. I could see it cropped in a little tighter. Sad to hear the story about the poisioning. The pose is right on. A nice one.

 

[haseeb badar]

Thank you Jon (your first comment on my post as a Mod), thank you Andreas and John, really appreciate your comments.

@ Jon: I dont find it on the cooler side, looks fine to me.

@ Andreas: Thanks for all your help over the years. Trying my best to put all the effort in learning and applying the PP skills in the image if captured properly in first place.
Colours are definitely subjective, and I did pushed the oranges in the tiger. As for the crop, I can have that decentralized version that you are suggesting, but dont want to loose that tree as it will make the image more sterile.

As for the look, I think she heard an alarm call of a Deer and stood for a moment.

 

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Haseeb,

I have a feeling Steve is going to enjoy this one...I am enjoying it too:tinysmile_shy_t: Dotty is indeed beautiful and the pose you captured just superb. Very nice POV and I quite like the vertical framing here. I did wonder whether having the subject more to the left would be beneficial, but came to conclusion the tree trunk on the LHS actually helps balance things to a great extent:w3

In terms of colour, I find the orange a bit 'brighter' than what I am used to seeing on a Tiger. Especially teeth. I am not sure Haseeb, maybe they are like this in real life, but they look too orange to me, let us see what the others say? Otherwise, detail and sharpness very good. Nice techs and great choice of DoF, very very well done!

PS. Really enjoyed reading your intro, thank you so much for taking the time to tell us more about the tigers of Bandhavgarh :S3:

Kind regards,

 

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Haseeb, what a lovely image of Dotty! Her eyes are beautiful. Loved thew low POV and the nice composition. Good details and techs. Was really sad to hear the loss of Solo. She was an aggressive tigress.

 

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Haseeb, always nice to see a Tiger or Tigress out in the open and one that is in prime condition. It's so rewarding to see an animal you have come to know over th years.

Overall I'm fine with the colours, albeit perhaps more brighter on that scale but hey... 5D3, I think you did well on the IQ, things have come a long way since this model, but it still delivers. Cropping, well all a matter of taste, I would loose some at the foot and LHS so the Tigress has more to look into. Again, personal, but I feel the NR is a bit too much, think it could be a little less. Certainly colour, IQ and (NR amount) is a lot less and far better on the MK3, R5 & 6.

TFS
Steve

 

[haseeb badar]

Thank you Gabriela, Doc and Steve, your comments and suggestions are much appreciated.

@ Gabriela — I did pushed the orange as it appears more pleasing to me. I do have more from the series but to avoid monotonity I will mix and post the images from this series with other images.

@ Steve — New bodies have really pushed things further since the 5d3 but still good try newly acquired PP skills on older files. As far as NR is concerned , I have only applied it once and that too reduced its opacity to 30% , it was minimal. Doesn’t look too much to my eye.