Re-post: Sika Stag

Gallery: WildlifePosted February 18, 201289 views6 comments

Thank you everyone who commented/ critique my original post of this magnificent stag over the past couple of days. Everyone one had great things to say about the photo, and a few suggestions to make it better. The one unanimous suggestion was that the stag needed more room in the frame. I totally agree. I tried a couple different crops, but wasn't satisfied with with any of the rectangular ones. The square crop that I'm using seemed to work best for giving the stag a little room (though left a little more room on the left than I would've liked) without making the stag small. I also applied a Gaussian blur of 1.5 to the background to help better separate the stag from the busy bg.

Canon EOS 60D
Lens: Sigma DG 120-400mm 1:4.5-5.6 APO OS HSM
Focal Length: 400mm
f9.0
Shutter 1/800
ISO 400
Monopod

Cropped about 40%

Comments and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Patricia Brundage on February 18, 2012 at 8:35 AM

Much better with the extra room. Nice work.

Registered on March 23, 2006, 1111 Posts, 6531 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on February 18, 2012 at 9:02 AM

Good job on the repost!! Thanks for sharing it again.

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

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on February 18, 2012 at 6:59 PM

Nice improvement.

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

Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on February 19, 2012 at 2:04 AM

Definitely an improvement Mark, great work! I do wish for a sliver more room at the bottom as that hoof is very close to the edge of the frame.

Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments

Comment posted by Marsel van Oosten on February 19, 2012 at 10:56 AM

I do wish for a sliver more room at the bottom as that hoof is very close to the edge of the frame.

Ditto that.

Registered on March 9, 2004, 285 Posts, 2277 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on February 19, 2012 at 2:05 PM

Hey Mark,

This is a big improvement, and please consider the rest of my comments as of the "in a perfect world" vein.

I'm in agreement with the others regarding that hoof being awfully close to the bottom of the frame - if you have more room there I'd bring it back. For my personal taste the buck is awfully centred - if this were mine I'd probably lose a little room off the left side and, if available, add about the same amount to the right side. Finally - and I fully realize this is a capture issue and can't really be changed now - to me the biggest detriment here is shooting with your aperture too closed down and thus the background is more distracting than it could be (if stopped down).

But a great pose and quite unique subject - kudos to you for getting this at all!

Cheers...

Brad

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