Ratty out for a swim

Yet another from my many Ratty shots



D300
400mm 2.8
1/320 sec at f5 ISO 400
tripod 393 head
Processed in NX2

Hi Ian, another nice vole image from you but I must say that the large area on the RHS does look like a hard bit of cloning has gone on and in my opinion does detract from the image quite a bit. It seems well beyond just repeated ripples in the water together with a few visible artifacts. Any ideas?

Brett

Hi Brett,

Just had a look at the RAW file and its not even cropped I have done no cloning at all and only resized for web and applied a bit of sharpening

If that is the case then I apologise for my mistake and I'd be interested in what others perceptions are..

Brett

Big splash. This one isn't entering the Olympic free diving competition!
Another nice vole image Ian, a little more depth would have been nicer but .... hey ho.
Robert.

Yes, I like this as a water vole image. Nice to see a shot of one actually in the water. I can see what Brett means though, is this possibly an effect of compression on uploading?

David

Hi Brett and David

it could be as I was a bit idle and sharpened the whole image But looking at the original NEF raw it there seems to be hardly any difference.

this is a nice image Ian but I can also see the strange patterning effect. I wonder what caused it? Must be something to do with the reflections from the water??

Anyway, that aside, the actual vole is very nicely captured.

Matt

I just love it!!

As Julian says I dont find the subject has to be totally sharp as long as the important bit is.
I do find that BG distracting though and I probably would try and give it a bit of G Blur.

Major.

I really like it as the focus is bang on and it captures that little bow wave well. The effect on the right hand side is slightly odd. Its always good to have room to swim into but I wondered how a portrait crop would look?

Simon

I agree with Julian, I like it, sharp where it counts and RHS doesn't distract for me.

Lovely image and very funny Ian