Striking a Pose

Lon, the setting is perfect for this subject.  The morning colors are quite nice and you got a nice pose to boot.  Was there any chance of placing the deer a little more to the right?  I understand if there were some distracting elements just to the left of the frame.

Max

Thanks Max.  On the left, there might have been another buck, as this was one in a group of four.   Given this is full frame, there is plenty of room to clip a slice off the right with plenty of extra pixels and I considered doing so...but decided to post it as shot.  If printed I would probably trim just a touch.

Lon,
Always nice to see something that I would never see, I really do not understand why people do not take more shots of the "prey species".
Beautiful light and composition

Hey Lon,

Seeing some indications of new camera and lens! 

I like the overall composition, lighting, and setting (and that outstretched tail is a nice little addition). I see the argument for slightly re-positioning the deer to the right, but it already feels "off-centre" to me...so not sure it's essential. On my monitor the image almost appears slightly too red, i.e., the grasses look almost too orange and not quite golden enough? Obviously wasn't there myself, so perhaps it was this orange.

Ken: You say: "I really do not understand why people do not take more shots of the "prey species"."

I suspect it's pretty simple - predators tend to be dramatically less common than prey (by a factor of close to 10:1 in most ecosystems) - hence they have a more exotic appeal to them and are not usually thought of as "commonplace". It's like an American Robin - within the middle of their geographic distribution they usually don't excite too many photographers. But the minute they show up way outside their range (and hence become an exotic) they draw a crowd of photographers. Note that I'm not saying it's right - just the way it is. I have 3 species of deer that live on my acreage, yet I pass by them every day without looking twice UNLESS they have dramatic or very pleasing lighting on them (like in Lon's shot above).

Brad, interesting that you bring up the red.  I know you are familiar with Nikon picture control settings and my in camera was on "standard" ...I shot this as a raw (of course) but processed it on Nikon software, awaiting catch up update on Capture 1 Nine.  The initial review was over the top reddish. The deer are in their most red colored coat phase right now and the morning light was really a deep orange. When processing, I de-saturated the reds considerably to make this appear what was more natural to my eye and I believe it is less reddish than the actual scene!  Regarding the D500...the autofocus is making me want to spend more time trying birds in flight, as I am amazed at the keeper rate on grab efforts of even small birds.  Going to be fun

Hi Lon,

Before Capture One Pro 9.2 came out (or the beta before that which supported the D500) I was using Lightroom for my raw conversions instead of Capture NX-D. But in the past I have found previous versions of Capture NX to be pretty good color-wise. I've tended to use Picture Control set to Neutral rather than Standard (which I've always found to be kinda punchy). Agree fully with your positive comments about the AF - other than the differences associated with the different sensor size (including larger AF points on the D500) I've found no other significant performance differences between the AF on the D5 and the D500 (both are awesome).

The only thing that caught my eye on your "reds" was the grasses - to me the deer looked fully "believable" in color. And for all I know the grasses are too...I'm just used to seeing more golden grass...

Have fun playing with that new beast!

Cheers...

Brad

Hello Lon, very outstanding!   like the light catching its antlers, showing amazing detail.

Bill

Excellent combination of light, habitat and subject.  Iconic.

This is a very appealing scene to me Lon. My wife is from Montana, and I often visit her family in both the center and northwestern part of the state. The early light on clear mornings seems to offers such warm hues and intense colors- which I don't find here in the Northeast.

As an aside, I read with great interest the comments both you and Brad exchanged on the AF of the D500. I can't believe the keepers I'm getting with BIF's- I look forward to you posting your future flight captures.