The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This was on Highway 20 Just West of Williams, CA in the Northern Sacramento Valley. This elk herd, about thirty animals was moving back up into the oak foothills from the valley floor in the morning. Unfortunately the sun was behind them and it was pretty bright.
Specific Feedback
Too much glare? All recommendations and comments are welcomed.
Technical Details
Canon R5, f9, 1/640s, iso 125, -1 ev, 100-500 lens with 1.4 tc at 420 mm.
R5, f9, 1/640s, iso 125, -1 ev, 420 mm.
R5, f8, 1/320s, iso 100, -1 ev, 420 mm.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Ed, I did not know we had elk here in California. What a lucky encounter. The lighting is not ideal, but then one has to take what nature gives you in the moment. The first shot has a more appealing background. The second seems a bit overexposed. I am not sure including the sky helps with the composition of the other shots. Did you bring up the shadows in the animals? That can make the background too bright if you don’t use masks to highlight only the subjects. Thanks for sharing these moments.
Thank you @Barbara_Djordjevic. I will go back through and see if I can isolate the elk and then rework them separate from the BGs. I think I may have selected the sky and worked on it separately, but then worked the non-sky parts universally. I don’t have really good selection tools with PS Elements, so have to lasso them each individually. It just takes a bit of time.
We have several nice elk herds scattered around California. There are a few Rocky Mountain elk up in the Northeastern corner, Roosevelt elk in the Northwest side, and Tule elk scattered around on the Coast from Point Reyes down to Cambria and mostly along the West side of the Central Valleys from Colusa County to Kern County. We used to have a herd out at the Channel Islands NP, but they were exterminated because they were non-native species and had done a lot of damage to the native plants on the islands.
TThanks for the information on elk herds here in California. I understand how challenging it is to mask subjects in Elements. That is one of the reasons I was talked into using Photoshop. Subject selection and luminosity masking has made the choice to use PS one I do not regret.
