Bull Elk

[John Mack]

This image was created in Benezette, Pennsylvania on 9/27/19 at 11:01AM. Image processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Hand held, Small crop.

Canon 5D MarkIII
Sigma 150-600 Contemporary
ISO 3200
f6.3
1/640sec

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello again John:)

Beautiful Bull Elk in great condition and what amazing set of antlers, love the calling pose and eye contact, HA is great. The background shows its lush environment.

Positioning of the subject within the frame works well for me and I particularly like the space you've given him on the LHS. A little bit more at the bottom to allow for the virtual legs would have been good though.

Water a tad bright in places and you could tackle this issue in LR, but I must say the subject is beautifully exposed with nice detail even in the darker areas. Lovely textures in its coat and to me colours look natural.

A beautiful scene which I am sure you enjoyed tremendously. I really like that the Elk is well separated from the background, nice thinking in terms of DoF.

Looking forward to see what the others have to say, and I hope you have a wonderful week ahead:w3

Kind regards,

[Steve Kaluski]

This is what I've been waiting for from you John, excellent.

Great subject and environment, you have just raised the bar again with this image, well done. I like the POV taken for height in relation to the subject. Having the rear so dominant is not great, but really like the head turn back and gorgeous rack, I also like the warm, rich light in the scene. Techs look good, but did you lighten the subject at all? Well framed and for me, just the right amount of water for the virtual legs.

Suggest for you via LR:

- use a radial filter over the Elk and darken the habitat and ramp up the saturation and add some dehaze.
- delete the highlights to the RHS of the right leg
- darken the water in the FG
- reduce Blue

TFS
Steve

[John Mack]

Thank you Gabriela and Steve.

Steve, I Didn't lighten the subject at all.

The repost looks great. "Ramp up the saturation" is something i never would expect to hear from you.

[Steve Kaluski]

The repost looks great. "Ramp up the saturation" is something i never would expect to hear from you.

Hi John, glad you like the RP. If the scene requires an adjustment to get it to where it needs to go, then yes I would use anything and everything at my disposal to achieve the desired effect, however as per here, it's being specific and targeting a particular part of that scene and to avoid adding the adjustment globally. In addition it's not just one adjustment its several but in varying degrees/amounts.

[haseeb badar]

Hi John -- Superbly done. I really loved the specimen with great set of antlers.

Very nice settings , and great that you captured the environment it make the image so special. Nice details and colours , Steve's RP definitely improve things with some depth and punch in the image. Really enjoyed viewing this one.

TFS !