Whitetail Buck in velvet

[John Mack]

This is a young buck i've never seen before. The light was pretty low here this image was made about 10mins after sunset. Image adjustments in Lightroom. Hand held, full frame.

Canon 5D MarkIII
Sigma 150-600 Contemporary
600mm
ISO 6400
f6.3
1/20sec

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi John - Nice pose by the young buck. Overall the image looks a little bright and saturated. Also you still need more room below. I suggest that in the field when you are tempted to shoot at the full extension of your lens that you back off the zoom a little to give you more room. You can always crop later. In this case, the alternative was to shift the comp downwards with less on top. Also, you need more ss.

TFS,
Rachel

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi John, A nice simple image with soft light. The buck's pose is nice & so is the HA. I agree with Rachel's comments reg more space below. The green patch in the upper right corner could also be cropped off a little.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear John,

Thank you so much for sharing this image of a Whitetail Buck. This young animal is so pretty and delicate looking and I love those branch-like antlers. Beautiful pose indeed!

I personally feel SS is too slow. You might have gotten away with it to some extent but just think about it, no human being can be perfectly still and regardless of the control and technique one has, handholding will still create movement. Changing settings and pressing the shutter while handholding will add more movement. With a focal length of 600mm you should have had a minimum of 1/600s, ideally 1/1000s or more. BTW, fast SS freezes movement from the subject, reducing movement by holding the camera very steady does not. If the Buck moved ever so slightly your image would have been ruined.

I am interested whether you have images from this sighting where you pulled back the zoom a bit, would you mind sharing if you do? On this topic, if no more available at the bottom of the frame, I wonder if taking some off the top would create a more balanced image, what do you think? Colours are lovely here, and especially those greens peppered with little flowers and tall grasses in the FG. Those little white spots must be butterflies? Tonality could be improved on the Buck, a bit more "pop" would be nice to make him stand out.

These are my thoughts for now, and my apologies if I repeated issues already mentioned above. I really enjoy your posts and take great pleasure viewing,

Kind regards,

[John Mack]

Thank you Gabriela.

[Jonathan Ashton]

John, I like the image but I think you are really pushing your luck with the slow shutter speed, I definitely think you will have more success if you increase the speed significantly. The image looks a little bright to me but I like the setting, perhaps a little more space below would improve presentation.