Guarding His Mate

Gallery: Man & FaunaPosted January 7, 201653 views5 comments

This photo of Elk was taken at Omega Park in Quebec. It is a wildlife park on 2,200 acres where there are several species of wild animals living in their natural habitat. It was late fall when I visited Omega Park and there was still some nice fall colours, but it was also rutting season and the Elk where staying close to their so to be mates. I used a large aperture because I was mainly focusing on the elk, but seeing the nice colourful background, I should have used a smaller aperture. It was a very grey cloudy day. Canon EOS SL1, EF-S 55-250, f4.5, 1/200, ISO 200, 70mm. Thanks for viewing, comments and suggestions are very greatly appreciated.

Comments

5 comments

Comment posted by Cay-Uwe Kulzer on January 8, 2016 at 2:34 AM

Cindy,

thanks for posting this colorful photo. The autumn mood really makes it very special. I also like the pose of the male. In my opinion the selected depth of field works fine. A pitty that the female is not facing towards the viewer, which I know is a matter of some luck.

Technically the exposure is very good. The image looks a bit soft when looking to the large version, but cannot say where it may come from.

P.S. Welcome to NPN and I hope you will get many good hints.

Registered on January 27, 2004, 494 Posts, 4021 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on January 8, 2016 at 3:48 PM

Cindy, a lovely arboreal scene. Color doesn't mean it has to be in focus. The positioning of the animals is less than best, but it quite often is. Softness is an issue, though. A round of sharpening would help. Was your IS on? This looks like a small amount of camera movement; either image stabilization is turned off, or it is turned on while on a tripod.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on January 8, 2016 at 6:02 PM

Your dof looks pretty good to me, Cindy. If the leaves were super sharp they might take attention away from the elk instead of providing a beautiful setting. I do wish they'd given you better head turns but they don't often take direction.

devil

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Pete Bengeyfield on January 8, 2016 at 11:44 PM

Nice shot. It took me awhile to process an elk in eastern hardwood colors, but I got past it. My only suggestion is when you photograph elk and deer, try to make sure their antlers don't get "lost" in the BG..

Registered on December 2, 2003, 1247 Posts, 3439 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on January 9, 2016 at 3:32 PM

Hi Cindy,

I'm in agreement with those who think your DoF is just fine here. It is certainly a beautiful scene, but the colours feel a little over-saturated to me. Like with your Black Bear shot some of the dark-on-dark detail here seems to be lost (and I'm not sure it could be pulled back with using a shadow retrieval tool (there's a very finite limit as to what can be pulled back in any image in the shadows or in the highlights).

Cheers...

Brad

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