After photographing a pair of visiting Sandhill Cranes (Second sighting of this species since 1995, with the first sighting being earlier this year) I swung by one of my few "secret spots" where I've gotten quite close to pied-billed grebes here and to my surprise a muskrat was hanging out along the shoreline (only the 6th time I've seen one). It retreated to the water after awhile but I was able to walk out on a dock and get this shot which I'm really pleased with. A lower angle (laying down on the dock) WAS possible, but not in my time frame so I had to settle for kneeling and angling my body quite low.
This is just a one time reprieve from my seal photos which will continue later this week
D300s 300 f4 + 1.7X TC HH
f/7.1
1/800
ISO 800
Minor crop, sharpened the area in focus, no other adjustments.
Comments
6 commentsI'm liking your seal images just fine, but this IS a nice interlude!
I like your diagonal use of the frame and the selective focus and thin depth of field do draw my eyes to the head region on the muskrat. You've already identified the single biggest factor that could have improved this image the most (shooting from lower angle) so no need to remind you of this. It's a shame the sky conditions didn't give you a more interesting and/or colourful water surface to work with, but there was obviously nothing you could do about this. I think in a perfect world I would like to see a little more DOF here, especially given how much of the animal is in view (and I think the diagonal orientation and strong line of the body would have led the viewer's eye to the right place even if more of the subject was in focus). I'm guessing that the thin DOF was mainly driven by technical issues, primarily keeping your shutter speed high enough to HH that lens and TC combo...
Cheers...
Brad
Maybe I'm screwy, but this seems to need a bit of cw rotaiton..? Seems the eys are off-level, which to me is the test.
Sandy r