Elk in the Mist

[Rachel Hollander]

I spent this past weekend in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and at dawn on Friday morning headed to Cataloochee to photograph the elk. There was a lot of mist/fog in the valley that provided some interesting atmosphere for some of the shots. This elk ran through another bull's herd without taking him on. This was as he stopped to bugle when he got to the other end of the valley.

Canon 5D3
100-400 @ 400mm
1/3200
f5.6
ISO 1600 (I should have dropped the ISO based on ss which was higher as this was into whatever sunlight broke through).
HH, shot vertical but slight crop for comp, pretty much straight ooc except for a Hougaard Malan contrast action, some NR and sharpened for web in CS5.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel


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[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, with the posture of the Elk bellowing and the early morning mist, this really captures the moment & scene very nicely. Personally I think you could push the image a bit more using Curves, Selective colour (Neutrals/Black) and some selective colour to richen up the tones. I think you have been very fortunate to achieve what you have in such a short space of time. :cheers:

Hope things don't get too rocky over the next few days, must be rather scary at the moment, stay safe.

TFS
Steve

[Tom Graham]

Maybe some crop?? Yet must keep the lovely misty atmosphere.
Tom
ps - I have difficulty in animalscapes/landscapes being vertical, always think of them as horizontal. Just habit I guess. Maybe that's why I want to crop it??

120212

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Steve and Tom. Sorry Tom, doesn't work for me, I prefer to keep 3x2 proportions when possible and I also like the disappating fog/mist toward the top.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Sid Garige]

Rachel,
I am with your original crop.
Excellent composition and wonderful color tones.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Lovely mood here, Rachel. As Steve said, perhaps a bit more tweaking to contrast and colour would really take this to another level.
I do like the OP crop but feel I might personally shave just a tad off the bottom, but not as much as Tom has?

[Tom Graham]

Sure, I like orig aspect also. But 3x2 aspect ratio is just an "accident" you know, developed from using 35mm movie film in still cameras. There have been many aspect ratios over the years and FWIW I'd say my favorite is 4x3. BTW, our eyesight generally has angle of vision 155 degrees horizontal by 120 vertical. This is very close to 4x3.
Here's a nice discussion of image aspect ratios - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29
Tom

[Tom Graham]

Weird, just now comparing the OP and my crop (#3), my crop has very red cast. I did no other processing to it, only crop, resize, save. It was done using a viewing program IrfanView. Even in Irfanview when cropped (before posting here) it developed the red cast. The OP looks correct in Irfanview (before cropping, resize save). Oh well:S3:.
FWIW, doing same crop (and rezize, save) in Photoshop the colors stay same as OP (no red).
Tom

[Steve Kaluski]

Tom your RP has an Untagged profile and therefore the colour shift could be due to that.

BTW, you may be lucky, but I know quite a few people who used to use IrfanView and it has managed to screw their complete system up. :eek3:

[Rachel Hollander]

Tom - your rp also has some weird pixelation going on.

All - here's a repost with a bit more contrast and some selective color adjustments.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, that fits the bill I think, although perhaps we are pushing you towards a direction we 'think' it should be. How do you feel about the adjustments/RP?

Steve

Good to see you have power!!!

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Steve, Sandy has been rather amazing and devastating to much of the area but my neighborhood has fared relatively well.

As for the changes, I am happy with both the OP and the RP.

Thanks,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

I like the RP very much, Rachel. With the added oomph I'm not seeing the need for cropping anymore, weird huh? :2eyes2:
Stay safe out there!!

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Morkel

[Tom Graham]

Thanks Steve, agree my crop not sRGB, I usually am careful about that.
RE IrfanView, am using ver 4.28 for months now and have had no problems. I see latest ver is 4.33 - I try never to be on the "bleeding" edge of tech by using the very latest what ever.
Rachael - my repost is only 93KB, just came out that size after I cropped and saved. So not too surprising about pixelation.
Tom

[Marc Mol]

Very evocative image Rachel, well framed, also prefer the original crop too.
TFS

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Marc

[Corey Hayes]

Great shot I love the mist.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Corey

[Gregor Bergquist]

Great one Rachel!

I like the original comp. In your repost I like the upper half of the picture, as it enhance the background trees nicely. The bottom half I like better in your first post, having the foreground in less color and contrast.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Gregor