This was taken with Canon 10D at ISO 400, 400mm, f5.6 1/500 in Amherst MA in February of 2008.
Please critique!
This was taken with Canon 10D at ISO 400, 400mm, f5.6 1/500 in Amherst MA in February of 2008.
Please critique!
Hi Bee... it must have been a rush to photograph this one! I really like 'head on' perspectives of wildlife like you've captured here, and catching the one paw reaching forward into the snow makes the image more interesting in my opinion. The eye contact is great as well. If this is full frame, then I would suggest cropping to a vertical format, eliminating space on the left and right. I also think you could do more with this in Photoshop to make the image pop more, and it looks like some more sharpening would also help, especially for web posting. Others here will surely give you more specific steps and ideas. :)
I hope that helps to some degree, and also hope to see more of your work!
Hi Bee,
I agree with John on the vertical crop for this. With a little processing I think you could get more detail in the snow, reduce some BG noise, and pull a little more sharpness out of your subject. I envy your opportunity to see him, let alone capture a picture.
Steve
I agree with John and Steve. Nice opportunity. I am sure it is a terrific feeling watching them in wild.
Hello Bee,
Welcome to the forum and to BPN.
I think my comments on possible enhancements to this excellent image are covered above, but I wanted to take the time to demonstrate those enhancements.
First I download the image and opened it in Photoshop.
I used a Curves adjustment (characteristic s-curve) to increase the contrast of the image.
I next cropped it as shown. As the cat is walking left and into the image, I cropped with more room to the left and on the bottom.
I used the Photoshop cloning tool to remove the bush stem from behind his rear and in the upper left of the cropped image. Cloning and removing minor stuff from your images is, of course, your choice. I just want to demonstrate how cleaning up the BG helps IMO.
Nest I sharpened the image using Unsharp Mask in photoshop on a background copy. Settings were 175 amount, 0.3 radius, 0 threshold.
It must have been a thrill to see this in the wild and I like the head on view with the raised paw. Nice work capturing this moment in time. If you have any questions, please let me know.
A thrill to see a bobcat in the wild. The PP work done by Robert is very nice and I like the vertical crop... Still looks a little soft on my monitor..
I upsized it after the crop to may it 800 pixels high. That took its toll on the image. When I sharpened it at the not upsized crop, it looked sharper. Bottom line for Bee here is that starting with the original file is needed to get the best results.
Bee,
Is this created as a JPG or RAW file? If JPG, what is the resolution?
Robert and all others THANKS FOR THE CRITIQUES!!!
To answer some of the above questions (as best I can)!
It is JPG file
file size is 8085 kb
picture size is 6061 x 4849
resolution is 100% (I think)
I am new to all this lingo
This was the most exciting moment I have ever experienced with a truly wild animal. I seem to be blessed with being at the right place at the right time. I was driving by on a state highway and the bobcat was trying to drag a dead raccoon (roadkill I assume) back into the woods. I shot for about 20 minutes and took 125 pics. He never spooked but did finally get the raccoon which was about his size into the woods for breakfast.
Bee
Hi Bee,
Welcome to the BPN family...a very powerful capture...agree with the rest on the techs....the vertical crop does put this over the top...congrats...looking forward to seeing more of your captures...:cool: