Elk cow in meadow creative blur effect

With a group in Yellowstone last September watching the elk rut, we spent some time waiting for a couple of bulls to start fighting. It was a long wait so I amused myself with the cows that were lazing around. This one was on her own so I tried to get both her head and the foreground grasses in the same plane of focus. But at reasonable shutter/aperture settings it was either one in focus, or the other, but not both. However I'd noticed that the breeze was making the grass sway and I thought this might lend an interesting bit of 'movement' to this otherwise static image if I forgot about 1/250 sec stuff and got creative.

To get them both in focus entailed using a very small aperture - f45 - on a 300 f2.8 with 1.4x converter attached. I dropped the iso to 50 to ensure I got as slow as speed as possible, which was 1 sec, and as I was using the smallest aperture I got max depth of focus.

This 1 sec exposure meant that when the breeze blew I'd perhaps get a nice effect of movement on the grasses BUT if the elk cow flicked her ears or moved her head during this it was ruined. And I was using the timer delay release to add to the fun of predicting when was the right moment. Quite a few frames later I got this one, and a great number of frames got deleted.

Its probably not to everyone's taste, but it beats falling asleep watching randy but dazed bull elk staggering about aimlessly!

1Dmk2n, 300 f2.8, TC1.4x, iso 50, big tripod, low down, locked down tight, timed release, mirror lock up.

Hi John,


I like this shot as its a bit different I would have liked to have seen a little bit more of the head though.

Hi John

I'm not a great fan of many of this type of image but I do like this - love the composition and I think I would also love the colour version!

David

It's certainly different Ian, not sure if I like though, got any more ?

Andy...

The more I look at it the more I like it John

I'd like to see a version with more canvass to the right and I'd also like to see one portrait format - got any without the tc?

Cracking John,really special,agree with David I think the colour version would be awesome!


Craig
www.craigchurchill.co.uk

Very ethereal, John. The movement in the grasses lifts the image above the norm, so, well seen.
Personally, I think you made the right choice in presenting the image in B&W; I think colour would be too ‘intrusive’ on the overall effect achieved. What does intrigue me though is how the image would look without the elk!!

Cheers,
Chris

not for me this one, if it didn't have the Elk head i think it would work better but then it'd be a different image entirely

I like the effect. I guess a bigger version would do it a lot more justice

An interesting story and a very different image. Doesn't quite work for me if I'm being honest. The movement is great but I think it would have worked better with the animals face visible.
Sounds like a perfect image to stack two seperate images for the extra depth of field.