[tuggie76]

A pair of deer before they took off.

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Last edited by tuggie76; 06-17-2014 at 04:41 PM.

[ausmoose]

Nice shot! Great that you could photograph them before they ran away. Deer always seem to run away when I'm in sight of them!!

[JimmyDranox]

Beautiful picture.

[FrankC]

Nice capture, nice light, good exposure, and I like the catch light in the eye. That one one little white dot really makes this image. With that little catch light, the eyes of the main deer look alive, as opposed to the dead look of the deer in the background which doesn't have a catch light.

Just a few things that stick out for me:
1) Your main subject has a tree sticking out of its head. It's obviously incredibly difficult to avoid this in this type of environment and when moving around is not an option. Luckily here, removing the white tree is a rather simple thing to do in post. So my criticism is actually with your post processing than photographic skill.

2) The soft edge treatment really dates the image back to the 90s. The effect may work in a photo album of your trip, but not as a stand-alone image. The affect (or your choice of crop) also seems to have removed the ends of the the deer's legs. Having some room at the bottom of the frame will add stability to the image. Without it, the subject will feel too low to the viewer.

3) Having the 2nd deer in that spot of the background is a little distracting from the main subject. Again, you probably didn't have the luxury of waiting for the deer to be in a different position or location.

[JimmyDranox]

The white tree from the background can be easily darken in LR 5, or next.

About the soft edge of the frame, is quiet nice, if the composition is good. For this instance, I thing that if you put the head, and especially, the line of sight of the eyes of the deer on one third, will be OK. Even if you have to cut the legs. You can use a blur effect, for the down part of the picture, if you don't capture enough space above deer's head.

[tuggie76]

I've made some of the adjustments you recomended, and it's a lot better, thanks. I'm a tad constrained with the crop as there is a tree just out of site on the right side. I chopped the tree in the background down and added a light to the rear deer.

Tuggie76

[Na Horuk]

With shots like this you can fuss into infinity, but there is only so much that can be done with wildlife. I think its great - focus is right, decent DoF, the animals aren't ugly and one has an expression, looking towards the frame.
But! I got to say, the removed tree does make a difference! The second version is better than the first one.

[tuggie76]

Thanks for all the comments.

Tuggie76

[timmijo]

Looks good! I wish the deer around here would hold still for me <sigh> so I can get a great pic like this one.