Eyes

Gallery: WildlifePosted February 24, 2012136 views4 comments

This pair of almost yearling black-tailed does were doing a bit of mutual grooming when they stopped for a moment to give me a look see. The original image had lots of distracting vegetation so I didn't think it made a good compostion. I thought making it a square would focus on the young deer and avoid all the unsightly vegetation. I thought the deer were kind of cute and that was where I wanted people to look. Does this work in that regard? This is about a 50% crop with normal sharpening and a slight WB adjustment in PSE. Taken yesterday at the local nature preserve that I frequent. Comments, suggestions, and critiques are welcome.

Tech info

Canon 60D with 70-200 mm f/4L at 159mm
1/250th at f 6.3 and ISO 800
tripod

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on February 25, 2012 at 8:02 AM

A pleasing image of the 2 does. I would like to have seen a catch light in the eye of the closest deer. I think you did well to capture these 2 with all of the bushes around them. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on February 25, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Hey Peter,

Might be worth posting (below) a 720 pixel version of the full-frame shot for comparison (I always have a difficult time answering the "is it better this way?" question without seeing the original).

Anyway, it is a cute shot as posted above. I'm not sure what you did with the white balance, but I'm guessing it involved warming it up some? To me it looks too warm for a shot in the shade or overcast conditions (which the overall low brightness of the scene suggests). I'm thinking an increase in the exposure globally (maybe 1/2 stop?) would brighten the scene enough to have the warm look work? Alternately, if you want to keep the scene dark(ish) to reflect what you saw in the field, I'd cool it off a little.

I miss seeing some "life" in the deers' eyes - some form of reflection would help a lot. I think they are there (they normally are, even in overcast conditions, and I see hints of them in the larger image) and just need an exposure boost to pull them out?

On the square crop: Not normally my favourite crop, but your subject matter isn't far off square so I think so I think "reflecting" that in your crop works just fine here...

Hope this makes sense...cheers...

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments

Comment posted by Peter Cross on February 25, 2012 at 3:20 PM

Thanks for your input Brad. I've posted a small version of the original so you can see what I started with in arriving at the posted image the other day. This shows all of the distracting veg. I wanted to get rid of and also what it looked like before I adjusted the WB. I thought As Shot was too blue (I used auto WB). I changed it to Cloudy, which it was, and thought the extra warmth more pleasing. I suspect real world would have been between those two settings. I've also noticed in the past with the WB when I view As Shot (and say clioudy day had been selected) that if I then choose Cloudy in PSE that the color changed. It's like Adobe and Canon have different definitions for the temp. that constitutes the several WB choices. Is that a correct conclusion? Appreciate any further insight and suggestions you might have on this.

Registered on April 3, 2010, 271 Posts, 1342 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on February 26, 2012 at 1:52 PM

The pose of the two provides for a serene expression. Having seen your repost, however, I must admit I prefer the full frame version!

In terms of WB, to my eye, somewhere in between the two.

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments