Watch out for the Horizon! Something that is so simple, but often overlooked is horizons. Especially in areas such as the Masai Mara and the Serengeti, but this principal applies with any image that has a horizon in it.
Often as photographers, we focus so much on our subject, the reason we picked up our camera and we are so focussed on making sure our settings and composition is correct for the subject that we completely forget about the horizon.
Now, this is an easy fix in post processing, but I really believe that we should be doing as much as we can in-camera in order to lessen our post processing process. There are so many elements that are out of our control in wildlife photography and yes there is plenty to remember when out in the field, but it makes our life just that much easier if we manage the elements we do have in our control, such as the horizon.
This is a very simple thing and takes one way back to the basics. Make sure your horizon is straight!
Have a look at this RAW image and tell me if that skew horizon bothers you?
I may be nit picking here, but this horizon really bugs me and detracts from what is actually a beautiful scene.
Something that I could have avoided out in the field, had I thought about the horizon and not just about my subject.
How much better does this image look?
It is not always something one focuses on due to the excitement of the sighting so if you do later realize that your horizon is skew, it can be straightened while cropping by using the angle tool.
Click on the crop overlay, a menu will drop down revealing more options. Then click on the angle tool.
This will enable a ruler icon at your mouse. Begin by clicking on the first point of your straight line reference. In this case, this is one end of the horizon we are trying to straighten. Hold down your mouse button and drag the pointer to the second reference point.
Lightroom then rotates the picture so that the line between the two reference points we established is now horizontal.
This is a quick edit to do but as I mentioned previously, you should try to straighten horizons when looking through your camera’s viewfinder before capturing an image.
This is really just a quick and easy fix, but do keep it in mind when you are next our in the field!
Keep those horizons straight!
Until next time,
Trevor
