The Clashing of Antlers

Great capture Steven. Good of you to have determined their limit of tolerance to your presence and capitalized on it. Very nice action shot in difficult lighting.

Stephen, you shouldn't have violated the "circle of trust", because once you're out, you're out Stephen, there's no coming back! ("Meet the Parents" 2000, loved that movie).

Ok, I'll be all serious now. A+ on the action with interlocked antlers, although the clipped hind end of the left deer is unfortunate. The photo seems somewhat flat, lacking in shadows. As well, there is quite a lot of noise. The D70 sensor appears to be struggling a little with the low light. The low point of view and nice inclusion of habitat while showing their faces and the action is commendable.

I remember that movie Gary; hilarious!
Nice action captured Steve. Apart from the other comments already made, I must add that the composition with the one animal's rear clipped off as well as the busy habitat setting does detract from my appreciation of this image as a whole.

I truly appreciate the critiques. I submitted this image to see if it would draw certain responses and it did, thus raising the following questions.

Admittedly, I could have reduced the focal length & thus avoided the clipping of the hind quarters of the buck on the left. But using the poor low light combo available to me at that time (Oct, 2006) and with the aperture, ISO and ss set at their limits, are you suggesting that I should have created shadows where none existed due to the canopy created by the trees and that I should have altered the busy habitat? Unfortunately, the remaining noise is a fixture. I have wrung all the noise I can from the image, using up to date noise reduction plug-ins.

I don't think you're recommending that I should have passed on capturing the behavior of bucks during the rut. I have hunter friends who profess, even though they hunted deer for decades, that they have never witnessed sparring.

Hi Steven. Sorry if my comments on the shadows hit a sore spot. I wasn't suggesting you do anything. It is an accomplished wildlife photograph, no question. The equipment of that time and lighting is what it is. The behavior you captured also, is what it is, pretty darn amazing!

Gary, I thank you again for your original critique and follow-up. I hope my response didn't read like a hissy fit. I hate communicating using e-mail type messages.

I accept the faults that you found which led me to purchase a Nikon D3 when it became available, which helped resolve the noise issue, and later to upgrade to a D3s, which provided a larger cache.

I'm trying to determine the boundaries established by this group regarding post processing. I have several other images of wildlife in motion (especially deer) and I'm going to post them eventually but they will require some PP. I'm not against entering in "Photo Art" but prefer to stay in the "Wildlife" category.

Steven, I believe the guidelines about what sort of photos may be posted to the Wildlife Forum are quite straight forward. If you click on the "POSTING GUIDELINES' button in the green bar above the definitions for the various forums are spelled out. Once it is determined if it is a WILDLIFE photo, then "If the image has been digitally altered beyond simple adjustments to color, contrast and sharpening etc. please state so in your post!" In actual practise you will have to radically alter a wildlife photo to the point it bares little resemblance to the original before it would be rejected as a Wildlife Photo and directed to Photo Art. In other words we are pretty liberal and easy going about artistic freedom here. Just let the viewer know what you have done though.......