My first Deer... (with Reposts)

Popped over to Bradgate Park this morning, I've never even pointed a lens at a Deer before today!

Anyway, the light was in my face, although the deer were very active and watched this fellow for a while under a big tree. I fluffed the ISO settings, I could have got away with a lot less, as the deer was static so could have lowered the shutter speed a bit. You know how it is when you get all excited! :)

The RAW originals were very 'misty' as the light was at about 10 o'clock behind the tree, so I've had to do a lot of levelling in CS5.

Have I gone too far on the contrast though? Any comments/help gratefully received!

D700
200-400 f4 400mm @ f4
1/400s ISO3200

I don't know about the contrast, Iain, but the animal itself does look very bright on my monitor, although the tree it is standing under looks fine. Very easy to get excited when a new opportunity presents itself, I do it all the time. I suggest you start again in RAW, and this time reduce the exposure to something more suitable for the deer as the main background.

Best wishes,

David

David, Many thanks for taking the time to reply with your helpful comments, it's much appreciated!

Ok, now I've calmed down and had another good look through my shots, I've found a slightly better RAW file and had another go. I'm still trying to get to grips with CS5, I've shot mainly JPG's up until recently, but noticed I had the brightness slider up at +50 by default for some reason....

Anyway, I've had another go, I hope it's better?

I think that is a lot better, but the brightness could still possibly be dropped a little bit more. I only hesitate because I have had trouble with this monitor in the past, what do those of you with calibrated monitors think?

David

I don't think that the exposure is far off now, but It could stand warmer white balance imo. I have just upped the temp +21, tint +5, and sharpened it at USM settings 30, 0.3, 0 four times and it looks like you have a nice shot in there Iain. I am no great expert at this, but I think it shows that the processing is worth getting to grips with. hope you don't mind.
eric

Hello Eric, No, I don't mind at all, I need all the help I can get! I really want to learn how to get my shots looking better, it can be quite depressing seeing the great shots on here and wondering why I can't seem to get anywhere near!

Thanks for the advice on what you did, and thanks again David for getting me started.

I'll go and have another go, I've just re-calibrated my monitor which suggested it was running a little dark which might help explain why it looks bright on some other monitors.

Well Iain you got more than I did last Saturday. A nice image. I think Eric's processing looks the best of the three images. It just takes lots of practice (and don't I know it). I think you will find that some of the settings in CS are set at +50 by default. You need to set them back to 0 and start afresh. Hope this helps.

Thanks Maggie, it was lovely to see them charging around the hill this morning, and nice to hear a Stag bellowing apart from on Autumnwatch on the telly! :)

I've saved some presets on CS5 now, to ensure it's neutral when I open the Raw files. I have a lot to learn me thinks!

Ok, my final effort at this, I still couldn't quite get the same shade to the deer as Eric managed, but I'm reasonably happy with it now.

Thanks all!

Vast improvement Iain, I'm hoping for something similar tomorrow afternoon!

Scott