I chanced to glimpse this guy up the hill behind the house yesterday just before sunset. I’ve had terrible luck with trying to shoot deer up here, as they are very skittish. I first tried handholding but I had to go to manual focus to avoid the fine grasses in front of him, and I couldn’t manage that steadily enough while handholding. I slithered back inside and put the camera on a tripod and extruded myself back out the door and get a few shots. (I’m about a foot outside the front door. The deer is about 100 ft away, across the driveway and up a pretty steep hill above a tall retaining wall.)
Specific Feedback Requested
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Canon R5, 100-500 + 2X at 600mm, 1/640 sec, f/11, ISO 3200. In LR, only shadows and highlights sliders tweaked and a slight cooling of WB. In PS, NR and some fine strands of a wire fence and one slender pole cloned out. No heroics.
oooh he is impressive! Totally worth the slithering! Such direct eye contact, too. Lickable light…what’s not to love? Really nicely done. Bucks are so much less active than does for the most part that it’s nice to see one. especially with that rack. I saw a small buck the other day while driving - just a two pointer. Fuzzy little antlers. I love it when they’re in velvet.
A great capture Diane, a lovely face-on pose showing the antlers to best effect.
Recognising that it is sundown with very warm light I might still consider a little extra tweak on the WB
Thanks everyone! @Ryan_H and @JRajput, WB was a quandary here for me. The sun was very low, just before it dropped behind trees on low hills to the west, but 20 min before official sunset. The camera is always on Daylight WB and I adjust in raw as needed, and of course the profile choice can affect colors too. I usually go with Adobe Color. Although the light did look quite warm to me at the time, I think this one did come out a little skewed toward yellow. I’ve put a repost above for comparison – I do think it’s an improvement. Is that closer to what you had in mind? The shadows are more neutral in the original, though. Maybe just some selective color on the yellows?
Ahhh, @JRajput – warmer! Can do that. While you were answering, I was trying a selective color on yellows to keep the shadows more neutral. But I hadn’t posted it so went back for another tweak, to warmer, and posted that.
I think that the tweaks were worth the try Diane . I can see the second one leaning towards blue and the third one probably has it. A picture taken at that time of the day should have a warm feel to it.
What Jagdeep says about monitors is very pertinent.
Nice capture of this velvet buck, Diane! I’m glad he hung around while you went back for the tripod! As to the color tones, I personally prefer the second post. The colors appear more natural, at least to my eyes and monitor. I don’t know if your camera has a focus peaking feature but mine does and it makes manual focusing while hand holding quite easy. All you have to do is turn the focus until the part of the scene you want focused turns red (I usually watch for the eye to turn red). It’s so easy I can zoom & manual focus with one hand while following a bird in flight!
Thanks guys! @Ryan_H, definitely true about monitors (and browsers), although it has gotten better compared to the previous century.
@Gary_Banzhoff, I should practice tweaking focus more. With the R5, I use back button focus so I can tweak the focus ring if I can keep my finger off the focus button, but I have to switch to MF mode to get focus peaking. But with the 100-500 the focus ring is in an awkward position, a little too far aft, at least for my 3/4 scale hands.
I do try to maximize leverage with a hand strap and if I have time, rotate the tripod foot 90 degrees clockwise to rest it against the base of my thumb. The real problem is that the whole rig gets heavier every year. But so does my tripod…
Many thanks, @JRajput (and anyone else?) for the EP! What a wonderful surprise! (And I haven’t seen the deer since. They have a lot of area to roam up here.)
Very nice capture Diane! Seeing the buck in velvet is quite a treat. I like all the versions presented above and usually lean toward the more natural light at the time. Great work!
