Big Horn Sheep portrait

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hello you all,
taken this Sheep portrait in the hills just out of Jasper in Canada.
I followed the herd up hill on all four crawling more or less, one hand the cam the other grabbing bushes or grass to not slide down……...

By knowing it is a bit tight on top and bottom , but nothing i could do (FF) . Just shaved off some parts from LHS and RHS.Head angle could also be slightly better , turned towards the viewer i feel, but hey frame is as is , and i was sitting on steep slope in the dirt and happy not to fall down…….

Canon EOS 1D MK IV
EF 100-400 IS L at 100 mm
HH

F5,6 / Iso 1600 / 400th sec

Processed with PhotoNinja and PS CC
Slight NR on BG

Crits as always more than welcome.

Cheers Andreas

[Morkel Erasmus]

I love the clarity and fur contrast/texture you extracted here, Andreas. That eye is also super cool.
I wonder if the overall contrast isn't just a wee bit overcooked?
Is that a lake down there in the BG (the blue), or house roofs?

[Andreas Liedmann]

THanks Morkel,
the blue is actually a river that is flowing from left to right in the BG with the ice blue water color.
Will think about reducing the overall contrast.

Cheers Andreas

[Loi Nguyen]

Andreas, like Morkel said, great clarity and contrast of the fur and the eye is supercool. As a head shot portrait, the comp isn't working for me though as the subject is turning away from you and not enough space in front of the sheep. May be try for a square crop. Loi

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andreas - I agree with your self-critique on it being a little tight but you did well with the conditions. Nice detail and sharpness. The grass in the mouth really adds to it. I know you like your images contrasty but I agree with Morkel on maybe taking it down a notch. I would prefer that the river in the bg didn't intersect at the eye but not sure there was much you could do to avoid this. Btw you should have held this one for March's theme, Head Shots.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andreas, I agree with Morkel, the contrast seems a bit OTT, perhaps clashing with the highish ISO too? Composition is an issue, I feel the whole crop needs to move to the right.

I know you are always striving to achieve the best from your images, however I do feel that keeping to the same workflow, but 'tweaking' it occasionally is the way to go, no idea what Photonija is, but chopping & changing software is, IMHO, not ideal.

TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Loi,Rachel and Steve first thanks for looking and leaving comments/suggestions.
I thought about your suggestions and tried to follow them , first i reduced the contrast and then i tried two different crops.
I agree about contrast is a bit hefty for an overcast day, so i tried to be a bit more conservative.

Rachel i think i could have done nothing about the intersection, simply i was sitting on a really steep slope and i wanted the subject to be eye level with me.I was happy not to slide down the loose gravel downhill.I just had the cam combo with me ,nothing else.

Steve - as i said to you before , there is no issue with PhotoNinja, it is just another Rawconverter , i just try it.I just do not like ACR /LR at all, the colors etc.The issues you see are coming from my way of processing in PS . I send all of my images very flat in tone , colorless and unsharpened , and no NR applied into PS.
All tonal ,color, sharpening ,NR tweaks are made in PS.
But anyhow thanks for your thoughts, in this case the contrast came from a B/W adjustment layer set to overlay masked by an inverted green channel.I just should have set the layer to a lower opacity . I think that`s all. And finally i use after downsizing an adjustment layer set to overlay at 15 % opacity (unmasked)
With the RP`s i used the same layer set to soft light at 10%.

I hope this all in all working better and you guys understand what i did.

Thanks again for watching

Cheers Andreas

[Andreas Liedmann]

And here is a square for Loi or others.

Cheers Andreas

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the final post, the composition works, it would be very easy to add a little canvas and content aware fill.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Andreas, Super detail and sharpness! I like the square crop as it seems to work here. Nice IQ at 1600 ISO. Great subject and love that eye.

[keith mitchell]

Andreas the last one does it for me " I hope this all in all working better and you guys understand what i did". All sounds a bit complicated but I like the end result.

Keith.

[Steve Kaluski]

That's better Andreas, cropping I feel works better on the last RP, but a bit more of the environment in front perhaps?

[Loi Nguyen]

Andreas, I like the square crop as it breaks up the lines in the BG a little bit. Loi

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Jonathan;Sanjeev;Keith and Maestro Steve.

Keith - if you do not understand what i am talking about (technically ) , i think it is not complicated for me , because i know what i have done. I do not know your skills in PS, if you know about Channels/Masks/Blending modes etc? A lot of stuff to look at, and sometimes too much if used the "wrong" way.
So in the end if you know about the complicated stuff in PS you should be able to follow , even with my bad english.
If i am talking in miracle about this stuff, just ask i will explain, but you need to be more than a rookie to follow, otherwise it takes too long and too much writing for me.

Steve i know what you mean , but i will leave it as is now , worked enough on this one.

Cheers Andreas

[BenBotha]

I also like the square crop better. It is as if the river is less distracting.

Ben

[Steve Canuel]

Like the detail and color of this Andreas. What a great example of the difference a crop/composition can make. Your final post eliminates the line of the river running through the head and makes it into something the sheep is looking at in the distance instead.