HI - this is a Mountain Goat Billie I think. This is one of about 30 that were South of Jackson Hole last week.
Canon EOS 5D MIII
Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4x III
Tripod mounted too
ISO 200
f/8
1/1000s
I took a lot of photos of Mountain Goats that I like but this one is my favorite. I'll post some others also.
I didn't do any processing to this because I like it just as it is, but I am wondering a couple of things: (my central AF sensor was just to the right of his eye, so I did miss that)
1) do you like the crop?
2) should I remove the grasses against the blue sky on the left?
3) should I try to get more detail out of the whites?
Thank you so much, Ashleigh
Comments
4 commentsAnother solid post - you're starting off well here! I'll start off with my answers to your questions:
1. The crop works well for me, hard to comment on other possibilities without seeing the full-frame shot. It is perhaps a bit tight for my taste, but if going wider includes more out-of-focus elements (like the rock in the lower right corner) then I'd probably crop this tight too.
2. On removing the grasses: both an aesthetic and ethical question here (i.e., some feel uncomfortable with ANY cloning or other means of removing elements from images). On the aesthetic side - personally they don't bother me, but you will find others that ARE bothered by them. You've probably guessed this already, but I find the globular out-of-focus rock (and snow) in the lower right corner more distracting than the grasses, but I'm more of a stickler than most about out-of-focus elements in the foreground. If you are so inclined this could be remedied with some careful cloning (using other parts of the rock as source material).
3. More details out of the white? I would. Some of the whites in the left shoulder look close to blown and I think some white-on-white detail could be extracted there. I would also separate out the light tones a bit more...using a selective contrast adjustment on the whites. Bear in mind that I'm uber-picky on things like this (on my own images)...I think many would LOVE to have a shot like this and leave it untouched.
Overall I like the POV on this one a lot - unless one does a LOT of climbing themselves, in most cases Mtn goats are above you...so to me that POV adds a nice touch of realism. As you pointed out the head region is a bit soft...but as best as I can tell from these low res images I think a little selective sharpening on the head only (very small pixel radius...like 0.1 pixels with an amount of about 175) would bring out sufficient detail to "fix" that problem.
Nicely done...I can see why this one is a favourite of your's.
Cheers...
Brad
Looking forward to seeing the re-worked image. Thanks for showing the respect of adding the "Mr." before my name. I'm very comfortable with being referred to simply as Brad, regardless of the age of the person referring to me. I can't speak for anyone else, but from my end it's fine by me if you call me Brad (assuming that's fine with you and your parents).
Cheers...
Mr. Brad!