HI, this is a female red fox that I photogrpahed near Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park in WY this spring. I followed her around for awhile hoping to get some clean shots of her when she stopped for me in these shadows. I liked the effect of the uneven soft light on her fur. I am wondering what you think of it.
Canon EOS 5D MIII
Canon EF 500mm + 1.4x III
ISO 320 | 1/500s | f/7.1
Gitzo tripod with Wimberley head
I cropped a little bit off of the right side and burned some brighter branches above her back. I probably could have been at 5.6 to blur out more of the background but I never knew where she was going to stop and I thought I would need more depth to get all of her sharp if she sat down or laid down.
Thank you, Ashleigh
Comments
9 commentsThis is a beautifil specimen! You captured her well and I too like the mottled light. I cannot offer any suggestions for improvement!
Another beauty, Ashleigh--both in subject and execution! Love the soft tones and shadow dappling, and your techs look flawless. Your IQ is undoubtedly better at f/7.1 than f/5.6 anyway while using the extender, and with it in play I'm not sure you didn't need all or most of that DOF anyway. For what it's worth, if I had been shooting your rig here, I would have gone f/7.1 as well.
Definitely one of the things that sets this one apart is the low camera angle. The detail in the snow is also fantastic (not to mention the incredible textures in the fox's coat!).
My only suggestion for possible improvement is it seems a touch dark on my monitor. You really need to take that with a grain of salt, as I'm still getting used to my new wide-gamut HD monitor and am not positive I have it set up perfectly (especially for web viewing). Beyond the sense of slight darkness, the eyes could use a bit of subtle selective brightening as well.
Overall a very, very pleasing image and one with absolutely outstanding IQ and appeal.
Other than a bit dark and the light spot above the ears, this is close to perfection. Love it.
Great low angle and dappled light here. I do wish for a hint more space all around?
Hi thank you for your comments. Morkel this is full frame so I can't add more but I agree that she needs more room. She was moving around so much I didn't think about backing up. It is a little dark too. If I brightened it it would overexpose the snow and fur on the side of the face so I left it. Maybe I can brighten the face and eyes a little bit. Bye!
This is quite beautiful as posted, Ashleigh. I very much like the uncommon effect of the dappled lighting and I believe you exposed it optimally, evidenced by really good texture detail in fur and snow. Again, fine as it, but if you wanted a slightly different presentation I agree you can take some time with careful post processing and brighten the shadowed parts of her body (Just a little!) and some boosted brightness + contrast on eyes to really make her "pop" from that dappled background. You could even try to lower the brightness on the background OOF branch behind her rump. The danger in such tweaks is in over-doing it to become unnatural looking. Of the several fox images you have posted...this is my favorite!
What a gorgeous looking fox! You captured her beautifully, Ashleigh!
Thank you for the editors pick! I learned a lot from everyone about this photo and things I can do to improve it.
Ashleigh: Marvelous lighting for this portrait of a beautiful subject. Congrats on the WP. >=))>