Tiger in BW

[Dipankar Mazumdar]

Dear All,
At the outset, I feel disgusted on leaving the tail out of this magnificent male tiger. I had the 1.4x II extender on the 70-200 f4 IS L and this is at 280mm, so i guess I could easily have accommodated the tail.
By the time I realized that I was not shooting with the 300f4 , it was too late and the head of the tiger was obscured by the bush.

This is T6, first spotted a couple of months ago in the zone 4 Tiger : B&W - Indiawilds: Land of the Tiger. Conservation, Wildlife Photography, Communities (http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6286) . The tiger was calling all the time for a mate. He is now settled in and has been often spotted with the young tigress T-41 (who, incidently was the first tiger I spotted in 2009 Subadult tigress,Ranthambhore - Indiawilds: Land of the Tiger. Conservation, Wildlife Photography, Communities (http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=598)).

There was very heavy backlight compounded by dust swirling around due to racing Gypsies, The foreground was extensively burnt out as well.

I feel, that a B/W treatment is best for this kind of scenario, I look forward to having your thoughts on this on how it could have been done differently.

EOS 50D + 70-200 f4 IS L + 1.4x II @ f 5.6, 1/500, ISO 800

Look forward to comments.

Cheers

Dipankar

[Mrudul Godbole]

The b/w treatment looks good. The dry habitat gives a nice feel to the image. Agree with you, including the tail tip would have enhanced the image further. The present composition looks good, maybe you can try cropping just a bit (1cm) from the the bottom. Thanks for sharing.

[Bhargava Srivari]

I agree that black and white treatmenet suits these kind of situations well. About the tail, i do not want to make you feel further more guilty..I cn imagine how much you would have cursed yoursef:)

To me, the tiger itself looks a bit too bright in this frame....may be it needs to be darker.

PS: Please see this..it may be helpful:)
http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/black-and-white-cs3/

tfs

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I hate the dust thrown up by the gypsies. The dust have ruined a lot of my shots. In that scenario, it is better to create black and white image.

The other problem is in against the light scenarios, the face remains in shadow and it becomes difficult to attract attention towards the face unless it is a rim lit situation.

You can experiment black and white converting in lightroom. There are many presets as well which can give a starting point to further experiment. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi