Muley Buck In Canola

Gallery: WildlifePosted March 17, 2015153 views4 comments

Hi all! Being buried by a pretty decent spring snowstorm this week has me thinking of warmer days (spring fever I guess).

After a seemingly impossible search for a mule deer buck in a canola field last summer (for some reason we could only ever find does in the canola last year!) Josiah and I happened upon this young buck just a kilometer or so from our home as we were headed further into the hills.

He may not "score" high in terms of antler growth, but he does score high for cooperation...he was slowly grazing away from us when Josiah said, you know, it would be great if you turned around for a minute...and he promptly obliged.

Interested to hear your thoughts on this one! Please view the LARGER if you have time...both the buck and the canola blossoms pop much more nicely.

Vignette in top corners is from shooting the 500mm wide open...It is mostly corrected in post but still apparent.

PS for some reason I am losing my EXIF when I save for web on my new system...I clearly have something checked or unchecked that I need to correct. My apologies on the lack of techs.

Nikon D600
Nikkor AF-S 500mm f/4D IF-ED
Mounted on Kirk window/ground "pod" resting on truck hood
Full-frame width, cropped from bottom for pano aspect ratio

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Jim Zablotny on March 17, 2015 at 9:37 PM

Hi John,

I like the pano and composition--maybe crop a little bit off the left. The lighting and color pop is very nice........................Jim

Registered on January 17, 2004, 705 Posts, 3594 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on March 19, 2015 at 10:14 PM

What a wonderful setting and great eye contact from the buck. I think a standard 3 x 2 with the buck still in the upper left would work better imho in terms of composition. A sweet frame for certain John.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Johan Malmros on March 21, 2015 at 7:25 AM

Lovely scene John. I like that it is in principle only the head popping out of the ocean of yellow and green. Great habitual shot.
I might have considered cropping a little of the out of focus area in the foreground. I find it a tad distracting, although a small knit only.

Registered on January 6, 2011, 20 Posts, 154 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on March 21, 2015 at 9:36 AM

Hey John,

Ahhh...Mr. Pano returns!

I very much like the simplicity of this shot - not too many extraneous elements competing for the attention of your eyes! One thing I am struggling with is the aesthetic impact of some fairly irrefutable laws of optics (i.e., a technical aspect of the image that has aesthetic repercussions for me). What I'm referring to is the 3-very distinct edge-to-edge "bands" of focus zones. For me (and I fully acknowledge this is a personal preference issue that others may not share) having 3 bands of focus like this always detracts from an image - I think largely because it screams "telephoto in use" very loudly (so draws attention to the technical nature of the process of the image "creation") AND because it is so different from the way our eyes work. If I imagine this scene without the OOF foreground I think "wow", but having both and OOF foreground and background here (that stretch edge-to-edge) does detract for me. And I want to acknowledge again this is REALLY a personal preference issue and may be something many other viewers would completely disagree with.

Cheers...

Brad

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