Canon 40D
Canon 100-400 lens at 285mm
ISO 400
1/2000
f6.3
Taken in the Kruger National Park. I was parked quite high up above water level when a giraffe walked passed. I thought that it may be different to have a head and neck view and with the water as background.
Would appreciate all comments.
The color and detail is wonderful. I like the composition, EXCEPT the shoreline at the top of the image is a problem. I'd probably prefer a tighter crop that takes that shoreline out.
High time we start seeing the Kruger pics, Pieter .
I like the idea here and your thinking. David's got a point. Ideally I would have liked the giraffe a bit lower in the frame as cropping from the top makes it a tad tight up there, but here is a crop suggestion for you.
Cropped from top, bottom and left to get the eye on the strong rule-of-thirds point to the right.
Then selected giraffe and did some dodging of midtones and shadows to open up the detail.
Also toned down brightness of the water.
Thank you David for your comments.
At the time of taking the pic I thought that I had left more room for a crop at the top, but it turned out not to be so.
Morkel - your re-do of the pic looks very good to me. To be honest, I had not thought about cropping it this way. The tightness at the top is less noticeable now.
As a matter of interest, this was taken at Mestel Dam on the Numbi/Phabeni Gate road.
Hi Pieter,
The water is a wonderful background to seperate your giraffe.
I like the detail, background and the composition of the diagonal lines associated with the giraffe's neck, slightly more horizontal as in your image.
I prefer Morkel's crop.
Maybe some sensor dust in the water to the right of the mid neck area that needs to be removed. It maybe a strange water ripple, but I would remove it, otherwise a nice image.
Thanks for sharing.
Mark - thanks for your comments and for pointing out that spot - which I totally missed.
I'll check other pics for that spot - hopefully it's just a water ripple.