Young Bull Moose, Rangeley Maine

[Grady Weed]

My first Moose imaged in the wilds of Maine, no calls or salt bait etc to draw him in. It was cold, wet, rainy, ticks galore, black flies bit me by the thousands, and my wife and I loved every minute of it. She is my best friend, constant companion and the love of my life.

We image this guy on the last day of our trip, Monday, memorial day, early morning, from only 30 feet away, while he was in a wet smelly bog. He munched on breakfast, small plant leafs, snorted at us, blew snot out his nose several times, scratch his snout with his rear leg, we almost died laughing at that pose. He peed on his food, then moved over to the next bog to get fresh salad fixings. When he walked we could hear the suction when he lifted his legs, we were that close. Almost all 200 images I took were full frame portraits, using my Canon MK2n. I believe I did crop this one to 85% for asthetics to printa 11 x 14. I took some off of the top, and right side to remove an ugly tree branch. I left the little flower top on the back, just below the neck area, I thought it resembled a fly, kinda cool, to me anyway.

My wife, Pam, used the Canon 5d and the 28-135 for full body images. She did excellent under the rush of taking images of such a huge animal so close. She will sign up here then post her first image for critique.

Here are the specs: Canon EOS-1D Mark II N, 5/28/2012 6:44:16 AM, Aperture-Priority AE, Shutter Speed 1/100, Av 6.3, Evaluative Metering, Exposure Compensation 0, ISO Speed 800, Lens: EF300mm f/2.8L IS USM, Image Size 3504x2336, Image Quality RAW, Flash Off, White Balance Mode Auto, Servo AF.

Please feel free to leave your thoughts. And thanks for looking.

[Grady Weed]

A side note here; the horns start to grow in spring, well started by now. They will grow till the end of August, then fall off in mid December, about. They will be in velvet till mid August. We will be going back up North then to image some more bulls, hopefully much larger ones, this one was about 700 pounds. We want one about 1,000 lbs, a much larger rack in velvet of course. While there we will take the opportunity to image the young calves with mom if it arises. Thanks once again for looking.

[Steve Canuel]

Like the eye contact and lush, green BG. Need to get myself some of these guys this year. Wet fur or recovering from a bit of the mange?

[Grady Weed]

It was definitely wet, a slow steady rain, of course he was in a wet bog, splashing a bit around, rubbing up againist the wet bushes as well. I did see one who was a tad thin, you could see some ribs. Now he might have had some mange. But I believe this one to be healthy. Thanks for stopping by Steve. Loved your post tonight.

[Ken Watkins]

Grady,

I will be fully frank:bg3:

I like this a lot, what a remarkable animal this is, strange looking is polite!

Whilst it is highly probable that it was that green, I wonder if toning it down might be a slight improvement

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Grady
nice eye contact,like the comp even the tip of the nose is too close to RHS and the LHS is almost useless showing nothing of interest .contrast look good ,maybe a bit more usm on the head can push it even more forward,the colors look a bit on the cold side so i would warm it up a bit,just personal taste.

Cheers Andreas

[Mark Wiseman]

Hi Grady,
I like this image a lot, remarkable animals. Good composition and POV.
TFS and best wishes,
Mark.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Grady,
took the image into PS,no color profile embedded.the colors looked better after i atteched the srgb profile.so,if you and others do that when you save the file there are less "color problems" on different screens.

cheers andreas

[Grady Weed]

Grady,

I will be fully frank:bg3:

I like this a lot, what a remarkable animal this is, strange looking is polite!

Whilst it is highly probable that it was that green, I wonder if toning it down might be a slight improvement

I thought about the saturations of the greens, maybe a re-visit is in order. Thanks for the comments Ken.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Grady - not often we see such a close up of these guys. Nicely done with good detail. I agree on toning the green down a bit.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Grady, I think the downfall on this is you SS, 1/100 sec. Unless you are rock steady the IQ is going to suffer. Similar to Laura's image of the Leopard, there is no real definition/clarity to latch onto, thus offering little detail with the subject. Obviously you have the form, shape & contours, but not the real 'texture' of the moose. Working with a fixed lens does no give you any tolerance and I feel the subject here needs more space around to breathe. Don't mind the greens and the richness, as the compliment the darker tones & colour of the subject.

Hope you understand the direct of my thinking here Grady. :w3

TFS
Steve

[Grady Weed]

Another go at it after applying changes to color profiles in CS4 and calibrating monitor.

[Ken Watkins]

Grady,

This is much better.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Grady,
looks better specially the greens,and the darker parts of the short fur.But i would tone down the sat of the greens a tad.Also the reds look a bit over saturated ,also a tad.My opinion.

Cheers Andreas