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Thread: Hippos - up close and personal

  1. #1
    davidedric's Avatar
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    Hippos - up close and personal

    (Another one from the Zambezi in Zambia)

    I confess to being a bit nervous here. We were just about 20-30 metres away, in a canoe, and a hippo can bite clean through a canoe (and anything inside it) with no problem at all.

    Well, we survived, obviously............

    Dave

    Hippos - up close and personal

  2. #2

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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Wonderful photo! Add sharpening to the three subjects and the water directly in front of them and you have a real winner.

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    Moderator Donald's Avatar
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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Remarkable image.

    I take Mike's point. That image demands different treatment depending on how it's going to be presented; e.g online; on a wall (quite small); on a wall (VERY BIG). But time spent on it will be time well spent. I am envious.

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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Really nice shot.

    Cheers: Allan

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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Wow! I'll stick with the relatively low risk of shooting my bears. Viewing on phone so will leave C/C comments to others.

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    Moderator Dave Humphries's Avatar
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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Hi Dave,

    Is that Dad, Mum and Junior?

    Great capture on the Panasonic G5 at 140mm.
    1/320s, f/5.6 and ISO 500.

    It does seem to suffer a little from possible subject movement, too narrow DoF and probably cropping in PP after shooting at maximum focal length and wide open, but heck, its not as if getting closer, using flash or otherwise adding light, was possible - so it is what it is.

    That said, some time spent on additional PP is worth it for a capture as good as this.

    Well done, Dave

  7. #7
    joebranko's Avatar
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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Great capture! Must have been nerve wracking. I have never seen one live, and never pictured them with that pink colouring! Thanks for sharing!

  8. #8
    Dave A's Avatar
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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Great image, I like the young one on the right.

    Dave

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    Shadowman's Avatar
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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Nice capture.

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    davidedric's Avatar
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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Thanks for the feedback.

    I'll try a bit more with the pp. I was struggling to get the balance between sharpening and noise.

    Dave

  11. #11
    IzzieK's Avatar
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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Great shots! You are braver than most...I like that you captured the expression of the big guy...

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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Quote Originally Posted by davidedric View Post
    I was struggling to get the balance between sharpening and noise.
    For me, there is no balance. An image made in this style needs to be sharp. If doing so brings out noise, so be it. Better to have noise and be sharp than not to be sharp.

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    Chrisclick's Avatar
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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Hi Dave, good shootin' - glad you survived. They certainly had their eyes on you!

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    Re: Hippos - up close and personal

    Great capture

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    davidedric's Avatar
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    Re: re-edited

    I have had a go at sharpening in Lightroom. Because local sharpening in Lightroom has only one control, I have sharpened globally, and then unsharpened the background using a radial filter. It may well be possible to do a bit better in Photoshop, but I think the inherent problems prevent a truly sharp image.

    The canoe is moving, both rocking and going forward - you have to keep paddling when there are hippos around (it wasn't me paddling by the way). The hippos are moving in all three dimensions, and they don't hang around! The camera parameters could certainly have been better chosen for this particular shot, but it wasn't working quite like that!

    Thanks for comments,

    Dave

    Hippos - up close and personal

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    Re: re-edited

    Quote Originally Posted by davidedric View Post
    I think the inherent problems prevent a truly sharp image.
    I was able to get your image perfectly sharp with no added artifacts.

    You mentioned the tendency to generate noise when sharpening it more. I wonder what the display size of the image was when displaying noise. 30%, 50%, 100%? The reason I ask is that if an image displayed at 30% displays no noise, I never concern myself with it at the time. That's because if it can't be seen at 30%, it won't be seen when when displayed on the Internet or when the image is displayed in entirety on a computer, television or projector. If the time arises that I want to make a large print that happens to display the noise when viewed from a reasonable distance (relative to the size of the print), I deal with the noise then and only then.
    Last edited by Mike Buckley; 29th October 2015 at 01:09 AM.

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    Moderator Manfred M's Avatar
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    Re: re-edited

    Missed this seeing this one when you first posted it, Dave. What a fantastic image! Well composed and processed!

    Yes, I can see why the person kept paddling as you went by. I understand from my travels in Africa that hippos kill and injure more people than any other mammal in that part of the world.

  18. #18
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    Re: re-edited

    Great shot!
    I'll take my hippos in a zoo, thank you very much.

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