Tiger portrait
Oct, 2021Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This picture was taken at a zoo in Rheine, a small town in Germany. After weeks of lockdown, I was pretty excited about the opportunity to practice photography at the local zoo. As I was looking for subjects to photograph, this tiger happened to be taking a nap right in front of me. After setting up my equipment, I was ready to shoot. I must have woken him up with the click of my shutter, because on the 2nd click, he was looking right at me.Time
The picture was taken early in the morning, when the tiger was still a little sleepy and enjoying the first light of the day.Lighting
The time of the day allowed for some significant lighting that I could not have achieved any other way. The tiger was enjoying the warm sun that was just rising while the zoo around us was coming to life. This way, one side of the Tiger was perfectly illuminated while the other one was hidden in the shadows. This perfect lighting also allowed me to capture some stunning details in the tiger's eyes.Equipment
As I had to keep a safe distance, I had to rely on my 500mm Sigma lens to "get closer" to the subject. I used the lens wogether with my Nikon D800 camera. Not an ideal choice, but it did its job. When working with anything above 300mm or a camera that will not allow for super fast shutter speed, I consider it helpful to use a tripod and a timer/remote to avoid any motion of the camera. This of course only works with non-moving subjects. I set the timer and the focus on the the tiger and then took several pictures in a row.Inspiration
I have always been fascinated by wildlife and capturing animals and perhaps their emotions. While I'm not a huge fan of keeping animals in cages, I was stunned my this magnificent animal. They say, a picture says more than a thousand words. Looking at this one, I certainly agree. The tiger's eyes were scary and captivating at the same time.Editing
As for most pictures, the strait-out-of-the-camera image may be great, but some editing can help taking it to a whole new level. While the tiger's half face was illuminated by sunlight, the other half was rather dark. I used Photoshop to get rid of some distractive objects, for cropping, to darken the background and to enhance the details in his eyes. I then moved the image to lightroom for some smaller color-editing, saturation, contrasts, etc.In my camera bag
I always have two camera bags ready-to-roll: First one only contains my camera with a Nikkor 16-85mm lens, a few SD Cards, and spare batteries. I take this bag whenever I go on spontaneous trips, architecture photography, city trips, some portrait shootings and much more. My second bag usually contains a backup-camera, a 500mm lens, more batteries and SD-Cards (for longer trips with charger), a solid tripod, camera-remote, cleaning-cloth, polarization filter, ND-filter and more. Depending on the occasion, I may take a 200mm or 300mm lens instead of the 500mm lens or a smaller tripod.Feedback
There's no one single way to take pictures of animals. I would advise everyone not to walk around snapping random pictures of all the animals, but instead planning and preparing for a few selected motives. Take your time with every subject, even if this means not having enough time to take all the pictures you had planned in one day. After taking your pictures, don't just start editing every picture, but select 5 absolutely stunning pictures. Ods are, all other pictures are just less than perfect versions of the one you picked, so no need to edit them all. You can have the perfect shot and all the software in the world, but still end up with a crappy picture just because you increased saturation too much or decided to be done with the subject" and move on to another. Be self-critic and re-edit shots again after not looking at them for a few days. You may notice things you previously missed or realize that your edit was way worse than expected. My Nr. 1 rule for photography is "plan, execute, review, repeat" because hardly any photographer gets it right on their first attempt. Admit to yourself that your first attempt sucked, learn from your mistakes, then go out there and try again. The results will be worth it, trust me!
