I spotted this white tail deer this weekend at the Lake Renwick Heron Rookery Nature Preserve near our house. It's too early for herons but one can usually spot deer. There are at least a dozen in the herd. This shot was taken in the late afternoon and you can see some sunlight on the snow. The deer has one ear back. Does this detract from the image?
Nikon D200 Nikon 70-300 4.5-5.6G VR at 300 mm Hand held 1/350 sec at f 5.6 ISO 400
Nice alert pose and I like the diagonal the trees make to lead the eye to the deer.
I would suggest cropping off some on the bottom. I would say at least 1/2 the distance from the bottom of the image to where the deers legs can be seen. The negatove space created by the large white FG draws the eye away from the deer.
I know that you were low in shutter speed but try for more depth of field by using a smaller aperture when you can. In this case getting the rump of the deer sharper may have been preferrable - but then again it is not always possible. As presented looks good.
Another option you have here is a vertical. In that case I would cut the right 1/2 the distance between the right edge and the deer's rump. On the left again 1/2 the distance between the left edge and the deer's head. Bottom I would still crop as I mentioned above.
However, though a vertical crop will be a good alternative, I like the long tree line in your image. Nice work and looking forward to seeing more.
I like the horizontal comp but agree with taking a little off the bottom. As for the ear, I personally prefer them to be symmetrically posed (both either in or out, out being the #1 choice)
Last edited by Steve Canuel; 02-09-2009 at 11:02 PM.
I would prefer the image in horizontal mode. However, I would take off part of the foreground as it doesn't add much to the image. Personally, I have no issues with one ear tuned to catch a sound in one direction and the other ear in another direction.