California's endemic Tule elk, at Point Reyes.
Canon 5DIII and 400/f2.8II handheld.
Would have been better if the horizon had not been on the nose level, but a nice view of the rack as sundown gets close.
f3.5, 1/2000, ISO 200.
Greg
Greg, interesting choice of a near square crop here. Most people avoid them but I think it makes sense here and works for me. Nice pose from the animal. Tones on the animal look good considering the difficult directional light and colour is showing a hint of warmth which is appropriate for the time of day. Detail looks reasonable here but I wonder if a touch more could be brought out on the head. DOF at f3.5 is quite shallow and wonder why you went so open. More DOF would have helped bring more of the body in focus and lifted this shot IMHO. The other factor that I find somewhat distracting - more so than the horizon line - is the foreground grass which is fairly sharp (maybe even where the camera had locked focus?) and contrasty. I'd be inclined to reduce the contrast there or add a small amount of blur to soften that part of the image.
Hi Greg - It's a nice looking Tule Elk. The one time I was at Point Reyes the elk were a good distance away and below the trail. The light looks nice. I agree with your self critique about the placement of the horizon. I also find the choice of dof here interesting. You had plenty of room tech wise to increase the ISO and stop down more. How far were you from the elk? I do find myself wanting more room all around on the image, the right and above are a bit tight and I want more room below for the virtual legs. With the fixed lens you may not have been able to get a wider view if you couldn't back up though due to the trail being along the ridge. Keep them coming.
Nice rack and nice pose, Greg! I like the way the sunlight is catching the face and head; maybe you could open up some of the shadows a little more deep on the neck and back of the head.
Unlike Rachel , I am not big on virtual legs, but I would like to have more space around the rack - easy enough to extend that blue sky.
Good point from Glenn about the sharpness of the grasses in front - maybe it is just a matter of masking them out when you sharpen the subject.
A fine shot, I have to admit I had no idea you had elk in California! Look at that thick coat, I thought it was hot over there and it never rained??
I too was a little surprised at f3.5 I think a smaller aperture may have been a little better but having said that he is at an angle and the rack looks sharp enough to me. I agree on restricting the sharpening to the elk.
Hi Greg, I quite like the shot, but the crop isn't working and the shallow DoF to me is a bit off. Can you add in if this is cropped or FF as it does help, as it's hard to say if you were too close and needed to back off a tad. You could have easily retained the SS, but upped the DoF to say f/8 and the BKG would still be OOF. The 'rack' appears sharper and with more detail compared to the eye/head, where was the focus point, you can check this in DPP, as you wanted the FP to be bang on that eye, nothing else matters, if the eye is sharp the rest will follow. I do however love the light and overall colour palette and this is where I think John Mack needs to be, getting that depth in via colour. The horizon is just on the cusp I feel, but I would 'patch' the LHS in on the trim for continuity.