In a hole in the ground...

[Xavier Maessen]

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." J.R.R. Tolkien

This year the bank voles (Myodes glareolus) are particularly numerous at the Rouge-Cloître, a part of the Sonian Forest that ventures into Brussels.

They like to wander under the dead beech leaves, looking for seeds, insects or buds. This little guy was photographed this morning, near the little river that flows through the site. I used the flash since the light was quite scarce.

EOS 7D + EF 300mm 2.8L + Extender 2x
Flash Canon 430 EX II + Flash X-Tender
800 ISO, f/8, 1/160sec
Tripod & gimbal head

Processed with DPP
+ Disturbing branch on the left was cloned out, some vignetting added.

Thank you for your comments & critiques!

Xavier

[Sid Garige]

Xavier,
Very nice representation of vole habitat. Techs are good and like the point of view too. Foreground OOF leaves are little dominant and I would reduce the brightness a bit. Also image is in Adobe RGB format and you might want to turn into sRBG before uploading on web.

[Ken Watkins]

Xavier,

What a great job you have done with what I would imagine to be a rare sighting, nice to see something different.

[Jamie Douglas]

Sweet image Xavier and I think Sid has covered it feedback wise.

Jamie

[christopher galeski]

very nice image Xavier,and I like Sids repost,well done.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Xavier, these are sweet subjects to photograph and I like the way you have used the fallen leaves to frame the subject.

Sid is correct about using the correct Colour Profile to display your images. Obviously an inherent problem when reposting with a untagged image is that it can give a colour shift and create a warmer/saturated look sadly. Might have been able to shot wider with your DOF perhaps, giving you a higher SS?

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Well done and Sid has improved an already good image.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

It's nice to see something different - nice habitat among the leaves as well. The flash work has been executed very well.

[Xavier Maessen]

Thank you all for your kind comments and your interesting suggestions!

About the colorspace, the original image was converted to sRGB before uploading, but the JPEG was left untagged. Sorry about that.

Here is the (tagged JPEG) repost taking your comments into consideration + less sloppy cloning job.

Xavier

[Sid Garige]

Xavier,

I like your version more than mine. Color tones seems to be more natural in your post.

[Steve Kaluski]

Looks much better, but being picky :bg3: you could loose that little bit of plant shoot, seed (?) in the OOF foliage in the FG if you were inclined, just catches the eye I feel.

[Xavier Maessen]

Thank you very much for your very useful comments! Steve, I hadn't even noticed that seed, but now that you mention it I can't take my eyes off it...

So, for the sake of perfection:w3 : cloned off the seed bit + toned down several distracting elements, including that bit of stem under the bud the vole is eating:

[Steve Kaluski]

Good call in toning those elements down Xavier and the cloning of the small part of seed. :cheers:

It's all come together very nicely, creating a very pleasing image.