Red Deer portrait

Hi Guys,

Just came back from a splendid trip over at your side of the pond..:)-
Spent the day at Bradgate yesterday and had some wonderful Red Deer encounters and was amazed that there was still some rutting activity going on.

Here's a portrait of one of the "big fellows" i came across...

greetings,

Jeroen Stel

Just came back from hosting my annual Red Deer and Grey Seal workshop in the UK and we had a splendid time with loads of opportunities.

Here's one of the images we got of one of the Red Deer.

greetings,

Jeroen Stel

Canon Eos 1D Mark IV
Shutter speed: 1/200 sec
Aperture: F 5
Exposure mode: AV
Exposure compensation: - 1/3
Flash:no
Flash exposure compensation:
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: AI Focus
ISO: 400
Lens: Canon 600mm F4
Focal length:780 mm
AF mode: Auto Focus
On Tripod and Wimbeley Head
Levels/Curves/USM/Contrast/Saturation/Noise Ninja/Home stewed Sharpening-mix / Adobe Photoshop CS5

Pin sharp detail, reallly like the diffuse ackground and the oof foreground but for me Jeroen there just isn't enough room on the left of the image.

This is a lovely image of a fine Beast Jeroen. The FG and BG are really complimentary, but as Robert says it needs more room on the left in my opinion. Otherwise faultless!
Regards,
Paul Rosser.

I agree a tad more space around would have been nice but...full frame is full frame...not much i could do about that at that moment (well could have done a few steps back.. but the Deer was on the slope of a hill so i would have lost part of the head then..)

greetings,

Jeroen

Still a good shot shame you have no more room

Brilliant close up either way.

Nice blur going into the chest, colours are realy good.very clean image.

I'm going against the grain here and find it framed very nicely .The body posture and the antlers act as a natural lead to that superb eye.

Fantastic! - apart from the tightness on the left It's a real shame because everything else is truly superb.

A bit tight but still a great image
Well done.

Geoff.

Looks like a mighty fine portrait to me Jeroen. I'd agree with Mark Davies myself, especially as the deer is looking at you and not out of the frame. I suspect that if this was of a portrait of a person, nobody would mention the comp. The animal facing out of the shot, but looking back into it adds an edge to the shot for me.
wavey: eric

I agree with Mark too. A different approach to composing a shot of this species which works because it imparts a sense that something else is going on. The colours look great.

Cheers,
Chris

I quite like the tight framing here, like Mark said the antlers and posture lead you straight to the eye. Great shot!