A very quick blog post.

Last Friday there was a great Wild Eye #Beinspiredby theme: straight out of camera. Those who follow my blog and Facebook page, know that I really enjoy the BeInspired Themes at Wild Eye.

This weeks theme really got me thinking. It came with a difference as not only did you have to submit your straight-out of the camera image on the Facebook page, but you also had to email the processed image. 

So the example I took was one which probably came at the theme from a different angle. That was looking at the photographic conditions and knowing when you have limitations that processing can potentially help you with. And I want to emphasise potentially, because as photographers we should try whenever possible to master the craft and do things in camera. Sometimes we can't due to the environment and light conditions we have no control over. 

The image I have above is a young elephant grazing in Madikwe. I'd seen a number of elephants grazing on multiple drives in this thick lush green bush. But I couldn't get a shot that represented what I was seeing. The elephants were either obscured by the dense bush, or too far away to bring enough context. This young ellie was in the right place. There was enough facial detail to see what he was doing. His ears were big as a warning shot. And the landscape in the background was a perfect backdrop. What was against me was the tree on the left side, which is a distraction, and the sky which was blown out due to harsh light.

So what did I do?

I changed my picture profile to a very flat custom profile on my DSLR that I developed for video. I knew this would allow me more latitude in colour correction. I repositioned myself in the jeep to get rid of as much of the tree/branch distraction on the left as possible. Then I used a f-stop of 5.0 to get some depth between the subject and vegetation. This was important as I didn't want to lose the front-to-back focus of my subject, but I did want to convey the density of the landscape.

Knowing these tricks, I then brought the image into Lightroom. With a slight crop, grad ND filter for the sky, and a special adjustment brush on the subject, the image now starts to fulfil its potential. For me this was an "average" image in camera that many others may have deleted in camera. Knowing how to get the balance right between what is shot in Camera and what can be done in Lightroom now means this image has realised its full potential; its a solid wildlife shot and one I love looking at.