Shetland Sheep Portrait (c)

[shane shacaluga]

Shetland wool is famous around the UK, and on my recent visit to Fair Isle off the Shetlands, the sheep were roaming the island freely. They were quite cy

The image was made just after dawn when the sun managed to burn off the morning mist.

Nikon D800e
f6.7
1/2500
ISO 640

Cropped for composition and very slight sharpening on the subject. Brightened the shadow under the chin area slightly and cloned a blue spot this animal had on its head.

Not seen many sheep posts on this forum but thought this portrait was pretty nice. My FB friends really enjoyed it :)

[Gregor Bergquist]

Hi Shane

I´m sorry to say that I´m a sucker for lions and the more wild animals, and find sheep a bit boring. I guess they can make a great pictures, but for me it then needs other interesting subjects. Like a sheep in a dramatic landscape. (Or a wild wolf attacking...
Something to try would perhaps be to darken the BG, to get more contrast between the white sheep and BG - more dramatic.
An observation is that the nose is perfectly sharp, but the eyes to me look a little bit soft. The ears is really soft. No need for the ears to be sharp. But, I´m thinking, was your focus point on the nose, and dof a bit to narrow. Or maybe your camera and lens setup is a bit front focus?

/ Gregor

[Mark Needham]

These guys are adorable and I like how it looks as though the subject is smiling . Good detail in the whites too. Agree that the nose is sharp, but the eyes are not; it would be good to know where you hit the focus point to determine if the lens needs micro-adjustment or if the focus point was on the nose and not between the nose and eyes (remember the 1/3, 2/3 DOF guideline) - also not sure how close you were, but if very close (almost FF), then I would have considered stopping down (e.g., F8, F11) to get more of the face in focus. Double check the blacks in the nose because I detect a hint of purple color cast.

[Neil Burton]

Agree about focus on the eyes but an adorable close-up and probably commercially viable as a tourism shot.

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks a lot for the comments guys. I still need to think about stopping down for these occasions but usually forget :)

Will try and think of that for next closeup portrait i try

Best Regards

[Arthur Morris]

The closer you are the greater the need for more d-o-f. I like the light blue tones of the sky. The shadow bugs me a bit.... I think that a contrast mask on the eyes only would sharpen them up nicely. I like the green strip and the way that the WHITEs and LIGHT BLUEs go together.

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks Artie,

I was tempted to do some magic and clone out the bottom part of that shadow but decided against it in the end

Will try the contrast mask and see how it looks

Again thanks for your comments and sound advice

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. I thought that losing most of the shadow with a flopped Quick Mask or two would be easy. I was wrong :).