Texas Buck

Gallery: WildlifePosted August 11, 201377 views4 comments

This is a small buck that I see frequently at the Fort Worth Nature Reserve. I took this image last October. He is very tolerant of me. It's as if he knows I pose no harm and that all I want is an image or two. If I had to guess, I would say that at the time this image was taken, he was two and a half years old. I base that on his body composition. He is somewhat slim. I have high hopes for this buck this year. He is a beautiful buck with a promising rack. One of the things that I enjoy is comparing specific deer from year to year. I think this guy is going to be impressive this year.

This image was almost full frame. I was using the auto ISO feature on the 5D. The camera chose the ISO. I try to shoot at f9 or f11 because I have found my Canon 100-400 is much sharer in this range. I don't think the noise is all that bad, but I'd like some feedback. I do like the eye contact and the ever so slight showing of the tongue.

Comments and critiques welcome.

Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 100-400mm at 400mm
1/320 s
f11.0
ISO 1600

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Jorne de Bruin on August 11, 2013 at 1:55 PM

A great looking buck indeed, I like the pose here! The noise doesn't seem bad at all!

Registered on June 26, 2008, 178 Posts, 2136 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Marsh on August 11, 2013 at 4:20 PM

Nice pose of a beautiful buck Jerry. There is a little noise in the bg but not bad at all. I also have a 100-400 and I agree stopping down to at least f8 gives much sharper images. Good job.

Registered on December 29, 2012, 21 Posts, 225 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Gulash on August 11, 2013 at 10:56 PM

Hi Jerry. Nice detail on this buck, noise is not a problem I would say. I really like this pose as well. The faint dark horizontal line (wire, fence?) detracts a little from the otherwise beautiful and natural setting. Personally I would find it very restricting to have to stay at f9 or more to get optimal sharpness (and be forced into high iso by autoiso). I might put the lens through some testing, or even better have Canon check it over (with the body) to make sure it isn't back or front focusing, just a thought. Legend has it that there are good and not so good copies of this lense, hopefully you got a good one. In this photo I like the effect f11 gave you, good dof for the head and back, but for a lot of wildlife shooting isolating the subject with shallow dof is typically the goal.

Registered on January 28, 2005, 879 Posts, 12098 Comments

Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on August 13, 2013 at 1:20 AM

Jerry apart from what has already been suggested I would be tempted to crop this tighter and lose the legs. The cut-off legs as presented does not work well compositionally IMO.
Further I am surprised you see a big sharpness difference at various apertures with that lens. Even wide open I manage to create tack sharp images with mine. It will be worth looking into this. I do remember that the first batch of this particular lens that was produced apparently had some issues.

Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments