A few finishing touches

Gallery: WildlifePosted March 28, 2010117 views6 comments

Last fall I was driving thru Elk Island park (actually heading home) when I happened to spot, out of the corner of my eye, a beaver lodge in the pond with just a sliver of open water around it. Much to my surprise when I turned around and got out of the vehicle, there were 3 very busy beavers getting some last minute things done before shutting things down for the winter. Thanks again for stopping by to take a look.

As always your thoughts and comments are wecome and appreciated.

Nikon D5000
f/8
1/80 sec
ISO-200

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on March 28, 2010 at 10:50 PM

Interesting beaver photo. IMHO you could crop tighter on the beavers. I would have been nice if you could have gotten the faces of all 3. Thanks for posting.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Marquart on March 28, 2010 at 11:25 PM

Nice behavior shot Mark, the only thing I might suggest is maybe trying to lighten shadows to show more detail in the beavers and the wood and maybe reduce the contrast a bit.

Registered on October 24, 2009, 126 Posts, 799 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on March 29, 2010 at 10:29 AM

Hi Mark,

This is a tough, high-contrast scene to effectively photograph. In a perfect world it would be nice to see more details in those shadows (especially on the beavers) - if you're comfortable with making selective adjustments to an image you might want to experiment with that. If the image were mine I'd likely crop a little more of the foreground ice out of the image and lower the subjects a little in the frame (thus getting them off that vertical midpoint a little, which may make the composition a little more interesting).

Cheers...thanks for sharing this...

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments

Comment posted by Walt Sterneman on March 29, 2010 at 9:18 PM

Yes, I agree with Brad. A great shot but you need to try to brighten up the darker parts. That can be done with post processing to an extent, depending on how much detail you can get out of the photo.

Registered on March 24, 2010, 73 Posts, 1268 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Shephard on March 29, 2010 at 9:39 PM

Thanks for the comments all. I did indeed think of cropping the shot much tighter to the beavers but thought I'd like to show a bit of the lodge as well as how the ice was slowly creeping closer to the center where the last of the open water remained. What I'm wondering is if a ND filter might have helped balance out the lighter from the darker areas. I've never used them and am in the process of ordering up a couple of sets for my lenses for future shots like this. This isn't one of my better images but I thought a posting here would be the best place to solicit some great ideas on how I might be able to overcome light issues like this. Thanks very much for all of your suggestions.

Registered on February 23, 2010, 62 Posts, 132 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on March 30, 2010 at 9:51 PM

If this is a raw file, I would love to see it with less contrast. I like the composition but the fine branches in the background are a little busy.

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments