Muskrat Buffet

[Vaughn Larsen]

Muskrat eating clams in the Platte River.

Nikon D500 500mm f/4 with 1.4 Teleconverter
1/2000 f/9 ISO 1400 -.3ev

WB in ACR, Topaz for noise reduction.

Looking forward to feedback.

[John Mack]

Really digging this one. I like the reflection and the eating pose. Nice and sharp. I like the slightly ripply water. The clams make this one for me. Never knew they ate clams.

[Vaughn Larsen]

Really digging this one. I like the reflection and the eating pose. Nice and sharp. I like the slightly ripply water. The clams make this one for me. Never knew they ate clams.


Thanks John, I never new the clams existed in the river where I found this guy. I have since found a couple larger area where it has piled up quite a large number of shells.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Vaughn, I like the POV slightly looking down and having the reflection in, but once you got this in the bag shooting tighter, wider, landscape would give you more choice later on, once back home. I could see an alternative where shot landscape with the subject to the left and having more negative space, with habitat to the RHS. The clam shells are a nice touch and adds interest. At ISO1400 I'm surprised you needed any NR, but the Nikon500 might not be good at highish ISO, but it's given the BKG for me, too smooth a backdrop which jars slightly with the sharpness of the subject, if this was Auto then you need to tweak the settings IMHO so it has more of a natural look. The blue is a bit OTT unless it's from something close by, again I would be tempted to pull that back so it's a lot softer, I bet the shells were more of a pale blue. Is this a crop?

Just on a 'Housekeeping note', we tend to suggest posters reply to 3-5 posts to one posting, it doesn't have to be technical, but builds on the community spirit. :S3: Look forward too more.

TFS
Steve

[Jonathan Ashton]

I think this is the first muskrat image I have seen on the forum, it looks very much at ease chewing away there. I too was surprised to see it eating clams, (I did a quick google and around 90% of diet is vegetarian). I like the pose and the composition, the image looks very clean in terms of noise..... did you apply NR to the subject?

[Vaughn Larsen]

I think this is the first muskrat image I have seen on the forum, it looks very much at ease chewing away there. I too was surprised to see it eating clams, (I did a quick google and around 90% of diet is vegetarian). I like the pose and the composition, the image looks very clean in terms of noise..... did you apply NR to the subject?

Ashton thanks for the comments. Yes ran Topaz DeNoise minimal setting to remove noise from water. I have captured this little critter eating crawdads as well, but most often underwater roots.



Hi Vaughn, I like the POV slightly looking down and having the reflection in, but once you got this in the bag shooting tighter, wider, landscape would give you more choice later on, once back home. I could see an alternative where shot landscape with the subject to the left and having more negative space, with habitat to the RHS. The clam shells are a nice touch and adds interest. At ISO1400 I'm surprised you needed any NR, but the Nikon500 might not be good at highish ISO, but it's given the BKG for me, too smooth a backdrop which jars slightly with the sharpness of the subject, if this was Auto then you need to tweak the settings IMHO so it has more of a natural look. The blue is a bit OTT unless it's from something close by, again I would be tempted to pull that back so it's a lot softer, I bet the shells were more of a pale blue. Is this a crop?

Just on a 'Housekeeping note', we tend to suggest posters reply to 3-5 posts to one posting, it doesn't have to be technical, but builds on the community spirit. :S3: Look forward too more.

TFS
Steve

Thanks Steve for the suggestions. I did do a horizontal, the rock gets larger to the right and was bothering me, wish it had been small enough to do a full capture of rock and Muskrat. D500 is best at 800 and under, its APS sensor. The Bright blue water is bothering me as well I think it's the only water not moving and catching the bright blue sky we have in Colorado. Had hoped to catch the shakeoff when exiting the water maybe next time. Looking forward to seeing what these ideas evolve this image into.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Vaughn, here I might just simply reduce the Blue in saturation, but applied as a layer mask adjustment so it doesn't affect anything else, or you can just make it a Global adjustment, just depends on what you want. Just lifting/lightening the whole image and then with some more localise sharping just elevates the image which is already a cool image.

Steve

[Vaughn Larsen]

Hi Vaughn, here I might just simply reduce the Blue in saturation, but applied as a layer mask adjustment so it doesn't affect anything else, or you can just make it a Global adjustment, just depends on what you want. Just lifting/lightening the whole image and then with some more localise sharping just elevates the image which is already a cool image.

Steve

Thanks much Steve, I definitely like the less saturated blue - now we'll see if I can replicate. thx again.

[Steve Kaluski]

Just do it all in PS if you want to be specific and use an adjustment layer with a mask, or Global in the raw converter. If you do it in PS change the Blend Mode to Saturation.