Sunlit Tiger Cub at Melbourne Zoo – click to embiggen
When I was looking for an image for the One Four Challenge I came across a series of shots taken at Melbourne Zoo Sept 2010. A mother and 4 well grown cubs were out in their enclosure, romping and chasing and wrestling with each other.
I spent probably an hour and shot TOO DAMN MANY photos and never processed them because many were very underexposed and back then the software and my skills were not up to the task.
This image of the cub chasing his litter mate under a climbing frame caught my eye as his face and front were lit up by a sunbeam and it was possible I could do something with that.
Turned out with LR 5 it was pretty easy and a few tweaks had it looking lots better with exposure and clarity and contrast. Its been cropped a bit too and I used the adj brush on the background to darken it up a bit and remove that distraction.
This was shot on the 70-200 F4 IS lens, on the tripod from a good 10+m from memory.
All comments, feedback, tips and tricks welcome!
Learning to See Light 
I love it! He looks gorgeous! Going back to old pictures with new skills can be so much fun! 🙂
All my One Four images are from my archive
What I like is because I havent been able to shoot new images I have HAD to go thru my archives and finding lots of treasures I didnt know I had 🙂
Wow, just wow, Stacey. Gorgeous capture of this beautiful animal bathed in light!!
Yes its not bad for a discarded image LOL
I just loved this image 🙂
The way it’s composed and the use of light is just brilliant 🙂
Be it in wild or inside a zoo hardly matters, such a majestic animal to photograph, right?
If it’s alive and well cared for I think that is better than the alternative for sure 😀
I love the lighting on this one–that beautiful face and those huge paws! I also like the tail showing on the side. Gives a whole new thought to this photo.
Adore the paws too😊 I left the tail in because it told the story better that way, thanks
There were actually 4 cubs and mum
Absolutely gorgeous. Love this.
Thanks Raewyn, Im pretty chuffed how well it came out actually.
Love how you have caught him looking towards the light, it illuminates his face perfectly. 🙂
I think that was more luck than anything, its been so long I have forgottne but I stood there for at least and hour rattling off tons of shots, so there should be a few goods ones you would hope 🙂
nice light and the darkening up looks to have removed distraction. Nice job, MM 🍀
Thanks John, I feared darkening up the background would make it too dark but the lovely lighting on the cub seems to balance it out OK
It’s so moody — makes the little fella seem so thoughtful and mysterious 😀
I think he is actually deciding whether to chase the cub in front of him or jump onto the climbing frame (thats the wooden thing you see posts of to the left)
Well, I guess that qualifies as “thoughtful”!
LOL!