Red Squirrel Portrait

[William Dickson]

Canon 5D Mk3
f/4 500mm
f/6.3
1/800
ISO 1600

I rarely post on here as my 'thing' is bird photography. I was photographing birds the other day, when this little guy showed up for a minute, allowing me to get a few shots.

Red Squirrels are on the decline in Scotland, so I was more than happy to get this image.

Thanks for looking, and, any critique, much appreciated.

Will.

[haseeb badar]

Hi William -- What a pretty creature. Lovely details you have got , sharpness is good and nicely composed. A few things i noticed with this image : A bit of magenta creeping in on its forehead but i am not familiar with the colors of this animal, also i find the edges of both the arms a bit sharp/rough and some noise is also visible on its arms and under its throat, should be an easy fix and TFS !

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi William, a very nice image with good detail, sharpness and BG. Agree with Haseeb on the colour cast but otherwise a nice shot. TFS.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Will - Nice to see you posting in Wildlife. I really like the inquisitive pose and straight on view. Were you on a tripod? If so, I might have gone for a bit more dof, sacrificing a bit of ss or increasing ISO if not on a tripod. As is, I would back off on the sharpening. It looks a little crunchy in places, most noticeable on the paws and fg plants on the left.

TFS,
Rachel

[William Dickson]

Thanks for the comments/views, and a big thanks for the advice. Much appreciated :S3:

Will

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Will , very cute pose of the squirrel and i like the comp .
You got good suggestions above .
For me , sadly image lacks IQ !!! I guess this is a large crop .
Something appears funny to me as the squirrel does look like a cut out at the edges , no fine tonal / detail transitions between the subject and the BG .Have you used the lasso tool to select the BG and blurred it a fair bit ?

Sorry this is technically not well executed Will , i am just honest

TFS Andreas

[William Dickson]

Hi Andreas. Thanks for the comments. I did quite a bit of cloning in the BG. The subject was selected with the quick selection tool

Will

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi William, cool to see the 'Reds' this cheeky chappie is street ahead of the pesky greys, hopefully the tide will turn and theses guys become the more dominant once again.

I like the overall concept/comp, but avoiding heavy cloning (not good practice and quite evident) and large crops is paramount. I would have bolted on the 1.4 or even the 2x MKIII, upped the ISO to 3200+ and gained more DoF. With the 5D any noise issues can easily be addressed, but ultimately given you a far better image in terms of IQ & cropping.

Without knowing the workflow and what you did I can only assume, but adding Contrast, Clarity, Blacks etc may not have helped and may have amplified the 'crunchy aspect, although it's key in the RAW workflow to get the White & Black point before you start in any fine tuning. The sudden transition in the moss FG from sharp to OOF jars a little for me, I would not have sharpened this, only he subject. There is what appears to be colour noise in the whites, this can be adjusted in the RAW, but then it becomes a fine balancing act throughout the whole 'Sharpening' Module.

I would build on this, if they are local then just get them used to you and foster their confidence in getting closer. They are notorious I've found, in offering only small amounts of time before heading off again, but if you get the site right, i.e. no distracting BKG items (reduces cloning), sort out your techs, then you will nail it, but try to get the image looking natural and not manufacture/manicured.

Good luck.

Steve

[William Dickson]

Thanks for that Steve. Much appreciated, and all points noted :S3:

Will