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Coyote with a leg up
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Coyote with a leg up

by Jared Gricoskie

Gallery: WildlifePosted January 26, 2010157 views6 comments
Today in Rocky the park service culled a few elk and I found one of the gut piles. Here is a shot on the approach of the coyote after I had been hanging around for the better part of an hour shooting magpies.

D300, 500mm, f4, 1/1000th, ISO 400, tripod, overcast.

In the editing with CS3, the shot with the foot raise was a bit tight so I took the prior shot, merged the two images with photo merge, masked the coyote in the prior shot and took the area around the tail from the previous image to give it more room in the left. Then cropped, I cropped the top off due to really distracting dead willows, hopefully with less elk, that should become less of a problem.

Coming up next post, the blood and guts, literally :)

Comments

6 comments
Comment posted by Dan Walters on January 26, 2010 at 10:06 PM
Nice shot. I really like the intense stare.
Registered on October 30, 2005, 405 Posts, 3693 Comments
Comment posted by Jeff Loomis on January 27, 2010 at 9:11 AM
Your photoshop skills are way beyond me. You obviously know what you're doing, because I would never have guessed this had anything but minor tweaking.

The end result is really nice. I love the classic coyote pose and stare. And the warm browns mixed with snow remind me of a Bev Doolittle painting. The coyote is really sharp too. The only thing I am on the fence about is the tall grass & brush behind his head. But there's not much you could do about it. Overall, I really like this.
Registered on January 26, 2010, 68 Posts, 719 Comments
Comment posted by Cam Held on January 27, 2010 at 6:42 PM
Wow Jared!
You photoshopped this? I would only have expected some minor tweaks! Nice work!
Anyway, what a great pose you captured , I really like the raised paw. The comp is good too, even if it is the result of PS! :biggrin: Thanks for sharing this awesome photo! :toast: I can't wait to see the blood and guts! :wink:
-Cam
Registered on November 12, 2009, 59 Posts, 398 Comments
Comment posted by Jared Gricoskie on January 27, 2010 at 9:42 PM
In reality, only the very far left side, from my screen only about 1/4 inch was from the other shot, everything else is the original file. The tail was just too tight in the original, I blame the 25 degrees plus wind for hindering my composition :)
Registered on January 19, 2010, 15 Posts, 10 Comments
Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on January 27, 2010 at 10:41 PM
Excellent pose with that raised foot and the head turn and definitely worth the editing you have done to preserve the image. I might consider to crop a sliver from the bottom to eliminate the very OOF grasses.
Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments
Comment posted by JACK NEAL on January 28, 2010 at 2:08 PM
Great job in CS3 and a great capture. I would love to see a larger posting. Thanks for sharing.
Registered on September 26, 2009, 131 Posts, 554 Comments