Artistic feedback: Should this be cropped, or does the surrounding fauna add to the overall story? I think the grass between me and mooselini here adds to the story: the grass is leaning slightly to the right and sort of puts you in an unbalanced mode which I think adds to the experience of being in the sights of a bull moose, especially that the grass does not obstruct his eyes.: An accomplishment on my part as I wanted to get out of there quickly.
What technical feedback would you like if any? Technically, how
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn) Used elliptical marquee tool with 90% feathering to highlight the moose. Canon 5DSR, f/7.1, 1/640, ISO 640, 70 mm.
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I think the composition is fine as-is, David. There are a couple of technical issues that bother me about this image. First is that the bright âcupâ in the right antler (our left) draws my eye a lot and I think burning it down a trifle would balance the image better. The other is that the face of the moose looks rather âsmearedâ with no detail in the fur, yet there is some texture in the fur behind it. Iâve seen somewhat similar things with using certain noise reduction or sharpening tools such as the topaz AI products.
You must have been amazingly close to get this shot with a 70 mm on a full frame camera, so Iâm sure you werenât taking time to mess with your settings, but for critters in messy terrain like this, I use the smallest AF area the camera provides, so I can get it to lock on where I want it-in this case probably right between the eyes.
Iâve heard of the Arsenal AI, not the Topaz. But this image was taken before I heard of either. I can use some sharpening of the face and burn down the âcup.â And youâre right, I didnât take too much time on messing with settings when I was taking the picture, but did set up some that I thought it would be before I met up with mooselini. Mooselini soon after spared with another bull. But they ended up in my front yard for the night. Weird.
Hi David !
It must be very exciting to be so close to the Moose. I like the suggestion of Dennis about burning the âcupâ but there is lot of clutter in the first frame, which I find difficult to resolve.
However the second picture is much better, you may remove foreground a touch and try to extract some details in the shadow.
I understand the problem with âclutter.â For me, it gives more emphasis to the experience of the bull coming out of the woods all of a sudden and unexpectedly. But, I guess that didnât work for others. The second image was just to show what happened. Itâs a straight shot with no toning etc.
