Elk Viewing Elk

Since Marc is moderating today, this one's for Marc...

The out of focus "watching" elk makes this pic for me. Notice the grass flying in the air above the main subject--he was on a tear!

This was shot with the FA*600/4 for those interested. No post processing, just a snapshot JPEG with K10D and a small crop to eliminate a boring area on the right side of the frame.

[Rense]

Good shot! Wished we had such wildlife in our country.... I agree that the picture is made by the background elk, it makes it exciting!

[gawan]

I like it, was it evening?

[Marc Langille]

Ah, clear shots of Elk....

Great shot Ron, and thank you for thinking of me! So.... shall we discuss loaner options for a super-telephoto zoom...?

Regards,
Marc

[Heinrich Lohmann]

That is a very nice shot Ron and I agree that the 2nd elk enhances the image but even without that 2nd elk it would have been a good shot. But why no PP ? A little tweaking could improve tonality.

[Ron Boggs]

Marc, give me a call if you need to borrow the "little zoom". That may be possible...

The image was made mid-afternoon which means the shadows were not harsh and direct like at midday. Certainly not interesting light as at dawn or dusk, but not obtrusive either. In fact the sunlight on the watching elk enhances it's antlers and ears while the shadow on the body keeps it "muted" and not competing with the main subject. Note that I'd been working this herd of elk since about an hour before dawn and didn't stop until the shutter speed was just too slow and the ISO was just too high after dusk. Got swimming shots and portraits and groups and much fun was had!

Why no PP? Cause I have no idea what tonality is...and because I shot over 700 images that day and edited down to 164 keepers of which perhaps 30 or 40 are publishable. All but those 30ish will eventually be deleated when I get them farther in the past and am not so enamored with them. I don't have time for PP in these situations. Either its shot as "good enough" or it's a throw away. So yes, I understand that RAW would be way better and I understand that some tinkering could improve pretty much any shot. Unfortunately, I enjoy the shooting most (so spend my time arranging nearly 100 days of trips annually in a good year to shoot rather than doing PP work) and with "critter pics" that have zero percent chance of being large print wall art, I have no need for more than an in-camera JPEG converted to TIFF to give magazines the larger file size they want. Is it optimal? Not even close! But again, critter pics only have value for magazines not wall art (Tom Mangelson I ain't) and very seldom would a critter pic get more than a single page treatment (at least my caliber of shots only get single page treatment--or less), sooooo I commonly shoot critters as if shooting film--either I get the shot or I don't. If I missed it...too bad, so sad. I'm an amateur going very deep into a hobby and there are no negative ramifications for a "swing and a miss". And by the way, many magazines prefer minimal tonality and color adjustments--prefering to do their own PP which tends to keep tonality consistent from one photog's shots to the next...