"Maya" from Tadoba Andhari National Park

[Siddharth Pendharkar]

Female, adult (approx 7-8 years old) captured in Main Zone, Tadoba -
Name: "Maya"
Date: Jan 2017
Notes: Captured exiting the waters of lake Tadoba in the late afternoon. Natural lighting conditions were challenging. Very contrasty with bright sun against shadows of the trees growing on the banks of the trees. Wish she had made eye contact but she didn't seem bothered with us as she made her way out of the water.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Welcome to IndiaWilds..!!

Nice first post. The vertical composition works well here. Is this a crop? There seems to be some loss of details and some sharpening artifacts. Please post the equipment details and the EXIF details to help in commenting. Thanks for sharing.

[Siddharth Pendharkar]

Hi,

In response.

equipment : 7d mark II + 100-400 5.6 L II
crop : There is a crop for composition reasons and to remove environment which had a lot of contrast and blown highlights (also was distracting from subject and adding little value to the frame)
exif: ISO 1000, 255mm, f/11, 1/500sec
postprocessing: color correction, curves, level adjustment with some sharpening and noise reduction. The original shot metering was a challenge because of the lake had blown out and effected exposure. Perhaps if i had gone with spot metering instead of matrix it would have given better results.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Tough situation. Long ago I used to experiment with spot metering. Once you know how the evaluative metering works, then you can simply dial in a tiny + or - exposure compensation and you are done.

In digital you have to be very clear about the highlights, as you can't recover the details once it is blown. Even though one can use the recover slider while post processing, the details from completely overexposed parts can never be pulled out.

We always try to pull the trigger whenever we see a tiger. In earlier days, I used to move the vehicle and position it according to light. With the huge crowds in forests these days, it has become increasingly difficult to do that. So many a times we get into a situation where the lighting is not ideal. No amount of post processing can make an image great, if the ingredients are not great to start with. So one just needs to keep on hoping for another great situation or use ulta-telephoto focal lengths to isolate some part of the animal or use ultra-wide angle and try different composition etc. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi