Let's see if I still remember how to do this. One from an early evening outing in late March, caught this buck and a couple of his friends cutting in front of this stand of scrub oak. 7D, 700mm, f6.3, 1/160s, ISO 1600, HH from vehicle, small crop from bottom, right, and top, processed in PSE 10.
Hi Steve - Nice to see you posting. I like the sort of muted winter colors here, the pose with the eye contact and placement in frame. You did well HH at such a slow ss with the 500 and 1.4.
This buck is sharp and well exposed, cannot believe you had 1/160s!
Love the BG, the FG puzzles me a bit as I would expect at F6.3 to have a few "in focus" grasses around the subject yet I really like this "painting" effect you have here, quite unusual and it works for me as it makes the subject pop nicely. I feel it might need a bit of rotation but let us see what the others say, overall I really like it, good processing and composition, sharpness is there where it counts, great work!!!
@ Tom, No to the FG. The grasses don't start greening up around here until mid-late May.
@ Marc, Maybe a touch light but pretty close to the winter colors of the grasses. Wanted to go a bit darker, especially on the BG brush but thought it looked a little to unrealistic.
@ Gabriela, This particular area has a lot of little rolling hills. There's a mound running between me and the subject and I think the grasses that should be sharp are partially obscured by the FG grasses lying between us. I've got quite a few shots of these guys with that effect, some like it, some don't, and me, it depends on what kind of mood I'm in.