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nigel3 β Life Lessons
Published: 2012-11-04 16:33:14 +0000 UTC; Views: 6908; Favourites: 477; Downloads: 147
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Description
Young Tiger cub gets a blast from Mom. Calgary Zoo.Canon 7D, Tamron 70-300
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Comments: 87
"BECAUSE I SAID SO AND I'M YOUR MOTHER, THAT'S WHY!"
"k."
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"But mom it's not me who has eaten the last piece of rabbit ..." X)
This photo is simply beautiful.
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Lol... yes, that is exactly what it looks like doesnt it.
Thank you.
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Adorable capture. This is wonderful work.
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Mom's lettin' off steam lol <3 such a great picture 
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Yes, she was a little tired of playing at this point
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How are you takingΒ picturesΒ it as though you're standing very close to the tigers?Β
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The tigers are from different Zoo's.Β I use a medium size lens like 200- 300 and then shoot through the wire, basically the animal needs to move away from the fence and then I lean in as close to the fence as possible that way the Fence goes so far out of focus that it just disappears.. ... finally I crop in slightly to pull it even closer.Β Basically that is it, there are a few more complexities, but overall that is the basics.
Thank you for asking and the comments.
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Thank you...Β Me too.. they were great in person.
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Wow, what a great capture! Β I love the expression on the baby. Β
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Thank you... Me too... I was him at some point when I was a child..
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Myself as well. Β Thanks for the llama!
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This deviation has been featured in my favourite faves !
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Thank you so much... you have put together an amazing collection, it really an honor to be included with such amazing work.
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How did you get such good pics at the Calgary zoo x.x I can never get pics like this.
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Hello,
Yes, the calgary zoo is one of my favorites.. they designed so that you can get good pictures. People ask me about how to shoot through the fence all of the time... so I kept this summary..take a read, hope it helps. The first thing though is the time of day.. if you are there at dawn in the fall or spring the animals are running all over as soon as they tire..around 10:30 or so, they just sleep.. most of the pics I got are early in the am or late in the day.
How to...
Okay so the animals mostly.. they are all similar, Birds in flight can be a little different but its close to the same process. I'll just explain about Earth Hour and Yum and it applies to mostly all.
Not sure what you know and how much photography you do, so I will just walk you through it all and let me know if you want to know more about a specific part, and really sorry if I explain things that you already know etc.
Equipment
2 critical things... long lens I use anywhere from 200 - 300 more is okay but less becomes difficult. The lens is not only to get close to the animal its also to make the fence say at the zoo disappear.
I always shoot in RAW not Jpeg, because RAW captures more of the data in the scene and then its easier to recreate what you saw in person.
I use Lightroom4 to deal with the Raw images and convert back to JPEG and make all of the fixes... I'll explain what I do in that and you can duplicate in whatever you have. Lightroom has a 30 day trial if you want to try it.
Getting the shot
So getting the fence to disappear is the most important part. but its actually all science.. not art so much.. this part at least. Sorry if you know this part..
- The lens has to be as close to the fence as physically possible.. most zoo's have the outer fence move slightly closer to the inner fence in some places. You dont have to be right on it, a few feet is okay.. whatever the zoo has set as the barrier, just find the closest part, and lean forward.
- The fence needs to be as dark as possible. I know this is counter intuitive, the brain thinks that light would be better than dark but that not true.. light fences are hard for the camera to deal with and it will ruin the shot.. so dark fence wire is better than silver. But silver is even okay as long as you can make it darker.. so cloudy days, or places in the shade, or have a friend create shade on the fence with their shadow... but bright sunlight on a fence will not work.
- The subject needs to be further away from the fence on its side..
- So the net effect is that the fence will just blend away because it is so out of the focus area.. but brightly lit fence will show up as a halo or a white softness that will be hard to deal with in post.
Software
So This is how I treat 90% of animal shots.
The camera tends to lose the blacks and it averages everything out..i just start there and put things back..
- First I crop in close, because I think that has more impact.
- At the bottom right i make sure I select the right Lens correction and in that same tab select manual to straighten the image etc.
- Then I go back to the top right and change the following under basic in roughly this order;
- White balance... I usually stay with how my camera shot it.. Sometimes I might change if the shot is in snow, but not often.
- Move down to the Blacks setting and move to the left, somewhere around minus 35 to 45
- Then increase white to the right say Plus 35 to 45
- Then shadows, I move that slider right to bring out detail and this depends, it is sometimes as much as 100% all the way to the right, but you have to see.
- Then highlights because in general thee will be too much now with the other changes.. so I move that to the left as much as all the way 100%, depends..
- Then I finally deal with exposure and will move it up or down depending where I am... usually i am increasing very slightly.
- Then I drop down to Clarity, it always moves up higher with animals.. people you cant do that with, but for animals it brings out the details... as a general rule i start with say plus 35 or so and see.... 100% all the way, gives it a HDR effect and that works sometimes but often can be too much...YUM for example is plus 12 and is one of my lowest numbers..
- I move up Vibrance and saturation a touch .. not much like maybe 10 - 14 on vibrance and less on saturation..
- Finally i will drop down to the colour section... often in this process Green gets too intense.. grass and trees look too rich and detract from the subject, so i will back it off until it looks more natural.
- and last.. I zoom in on the eyes and select the paintbrush tool, top right.. and load it with Iris enhance from the drop down and go over the eyes just to brighten... if the teeth are visible I will do the same with the whiten teeth brush just to talk the yellow edge off of them.
Thats basically it.. let me know if I can answer anything else..
Nigel
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Wow...so really it comes down to the camera. My camera stinks for faraway shots. Thanks!
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Why do I have the feeling she may just be yawning?
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No... She was a little annoyed, this little guy spent over an hour chasing around..she played along for a while but started to get tired of it all. This was the moment that she said "enough" and you can see the mixed emotions on his face as he took the blast from mom..
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Was it a loud and long thunderous ROAR or just a quick little snarl?
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Just like my American shorthairs ... so familiar. Nice shot! Tigers at your zoo seem more lively than ours. Or just you never miss a chance.
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Thank you... Actually its when you go to the Zoo that makes a difference, this shot was taken just after dawn in the winter. I spent about 3 hours watching all kinds of animals run around, play and eat.. by 10:30 - 11:00 they were all laying around or sleeping... they also get active again late in the day at dusk... I do my best to try and get there at those times.. This was also a freezing cold day with snow. Like us, tigers are more active in the cold and tend to sleep when its really hot... They cant take off their fur coat.
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Wow, very impressive! You know your subjects so well
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..."Now go to your room! And don't let me catch you doing that again!" 
Nice shot!
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Thank you.. yes, I felt exactly like this at some point as a child...I think my ears actually went back like that.
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XD Reminds me of when I get lectured by MY mom.
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Yeah.. I think we all felt this way at some point..
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Puts the term Mama Tiger really into prospective.
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Regardless of species,a kid knows when it in trouble 
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