Mister Mara

Interesting to compare this with Jagdeep's recent post, in my view this is "dull" in comparison. Sorry about that

Nice composition and tones, in the elephant especially.

Perhaps it's an unfortunate coincidence, but the light patch of sky along the top and lighter grass along the bottom almost give the appearance of a light vignette, which I find to be a minor distraction (at least, I'm assuming you didn't add one ).

Max

Hey Morkel,

I like the textures on the skin here, but for some reason this one isn't grabbing me as much as many of your other shots. For me (and I may well be alone in this feeling), the bands of focus (OOF foreground; then in-focus elephant and grasses; then OOF background) are a little too distinct and in MOST images I personally prefer having only two distinct zones of focus (and most often the extra OOF foreground band is what doesn't work for me). That halo that Max is referring to drew my eye as well (not saying that it wasn't natural - simply that it caught my eye).

Cheers...

Brad

Morkel, I love the comp with the tree in the BG. I didn't find the oof zones bothersome, more because I thought you had done that intentionally to get a more ethereal, "Out of Africa" type look. I do think it feels a little dark. I'm expecting those grasses to be lighter than neutral by a bit if not a fair amount. Try dropping a levels adjustment on it and running the midtones up to about 1.40 and see how it looks.

This has a moody somber feel to it Morkel that I like

I like this but I will agree that the OOF zones are a bit distracting. Having both the foreground and background out of focus makes the brain think "macro" while the subject clearly isn't. Maybe this contradiction is what's distracting?

Still a nice image though. I'd love to see an f/8 version of it.

Clinton