I was really excited to find this opossum as I rarely see them alive. Unfortunately they are fairly common road-kill. I wanted to get that eye-level view and discovered this is not as easy as just laying on the ground. This ground was very wet from a previous rain and the field obviously held a huge flock of migrating geese as it was full of fresh goose droppings. Since the opossum was always moving and searching for food, I found it hard to keep up with it while on my belly. My routine was lay down, arrange, aim & focus camera, opossum moves, I struggle up into a crouch, try to move with opposum but not disturb it, lay down...and so on
I did find it a cooperative creature, however.
Canon 1DMark IV, Canon 400 f4 DO IS, 1/500, f5, exp. comp. +1/3, ISO 400
Never have been so close to a opossum :)) Great image, love the details and sharpness. I might would add a tad more space to the right. Just me!!
Have a great day and weekend
Ciao
Anette
PS Is it only for me or for others too. I wrote this comment now the third time and now copy it just in case. I try to submit this one and other comments in the forum a few. I have to retry always 2-3x!!
Hi Nancy - your perseverance paid off. Nice low pov and the open mouth and raised foot add to the image. PP looks good to me. I might apply a little more selective sharpening to the face/head.
Thanks, Annette. Rachel, I agree with you about more selective sharpening to the face/head. I did do one round of additional sharpening there before posting, but another round would be good.
Hi Nancy, getting down low in whatever is lying on the ground is all part & parcel of Wildlife photography, besides which it's generally orgnic. You may not smell nice, but you get the shot and clothes wash easily. I generally pack a spare pair of trousers especially when I've been out & about like this week, don't like to get the car too dirty Waterproofs are quite good, but create too much noise, if you want to do more look at Cabelas they cater for everything and the clothes are good.
Getting back to the image, you did well and getting to eye level really makes the shot. You should look to buying an angle finder, often helps in shots like this. Not the greatest bit of kit, but sometimes it helps. Just looking at the image, applying a luminosity adjustment layer helps, but I would also look to getting more from within the face too. This is on the laptop so it's not ideal and the whites are perhaps emphasising things, but you can see what has changed and the more information you have within the file to get out.
TFS
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Steve, I am always so impressed with your tweaking! I now spend more time carefully looking at my images in ACR and using the tone curve adjustments. Is this where you suggest I extract the file information more thoroughly? Thanks for the angle finder suggestion. Would be good for flowers also.
Nancy, Tonal Curve is good as you can toggle between the two, Parametric & Point, however in ACR you should explore the top menu bar too. Using the tools you can 'refine' things also.
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Super up close image of this cutie-pie. Steve's impressive tweaking brought it up another notch. Love all the details, and seeing the teeth and the hand.