On the Mend

Gallery: WildlifePosted December 26, 2014159 views6 comments

I've been keeping tabs on this buck for the past 10 days or so as he appeared to have injured himself just before that and was obviously favoring one leg. Today, he appeared to be moving better and I'm hopeful he'll be mostly healed the next time I see him. He's one of my favorites as I like his nicely shaped and colored antlers. There was a lot of excess habitat in this photo, so I cropped it to about 50-60% of the original. I added quite a bit of contrast to help his antlers pop from the BG, added a little bit of warmth, and some clarity and vibrance. Your comments and critiques are welcome and I would appreciate your thoughts.

Tech Info

Canon EOS 60D and EF 70-200mm f/4 at 200mm
1/800th at f/4 and ISO 1600
tripod
Lightroom 5

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by William Bickle on December 27, 2014 at 8:58 AM

hello Peter

seems dark setting? But well captured in natural setting.

Bill

Registered on June 13, 2011, 183 Posts, 1702 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Sandor on December 27, 2014 at 11:19 AM

Peter: Given the grey sky in the background, it's a tough light setting to work with. I think this might work better as a pano. If you cropped the top 1/3 or so, that would get rid of a lot of featureless grey sky as well as the trees which don't have much detail in them. Have you tried selectively brightening the trees a bit to see if that helps? Richard

Registered on January 12, 2014, 453 Posts, 1625 Comments

Comment posted by Sandra M. Apel on December 27, 2014 at 1:51 PM

I like what you did regarding adding vibrance etc. to make the antlers pop out, they do. Appreciating that you want to keep the buck in his natural setting, not sure there is much else to adjust. I, myself would try to crop even further and set the buck with as little of the BG trees as possible. Hope he continues to mend. Thanks for posting

Registered on October 15, 2013, 20 Posts, 171 Comments

Comment posted by Jerry Austin on December 27, 2014 at 10:11 PM

The buck really stands out in this shot. Beautiful buck.

Registered on January 6, 2012, 651 Posts, 3448 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on December 28, 2014 at 8:34 AM

HI Peter,

I'm in agreement with the comments that the bright sky takes away from this shot, tho' I don't know if I advocate going for a pano crop "solve" the problem (even with a tight pano crop there would be quite a bit of bright background light). That OOF foreground bush also detracts a bit from the shot. You know, sometime there are scene problems that just can't be fixed - in-camera or behind the computer...one part of becoming a better photographer is learning which scenes work and which don't - there are many scenes that look great to the eye, but don't translate well into a photograph despite our best efforts. But the buck is nice!

Cheers...

Brad

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

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on December 31, 2014 at 11:21 AM

You are working in extreme contrasty and busy environments. I think here the sky and trees behind or a minor issue, but the foreground out of focus dark blobs of grass are a significant distraction. I like how you were able to process so the antlers stood out from the background.

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