This portrait of the buck was taken 3 minutes after I took the photo of he and his mate in the snowscape, which I also posted here on my Fstoppers profile page. I was using my 60-600mm Sigma zoom ... this was taken at 295mm and the other one was taken at 68mm. I just love how having a zoom lens with a wide range enables one to get so many different looking images from the same encounter!
Tom, beautiful environmental portrait of a white-tailed buck, an image to be proud of for sure, I would be.
Don’t get me wrong, bigger and closer wildlife images aren’t always better. But looking at both your images and the numbers I’m guesstimating you were probably with in 40 to 60 foot range and very well could have make a vertical shot that should have been able to filled the frame with antlers, head, and a little neck. I’m not suggesting it would be easy especially if you were handholding all the power.
Just curious?
Haha! It's funny that you mention turning the camera vertical, zooming in further, and making an even tighter portrait ..... because that is exactly what I intended to do! But, the buck turned back away from me to face the doe before I could do that, so those images never happened.
I have learned to take the shots I want most first, because alternative compositions may never happen. There just isn't enough time to frame it all sorts of different ways.
Good calls on your behalf, and as I mentioned sometimes those “classic” wall mount trophy frame filling portraits may have the impact of WOW factor but not the stay power of the more thoughtful art appeal of the two images you’ve posted. It’s something that can take awhile for photographers to understand especially just beginning in the wildlife genre.
Children and animals take lots of patience and attention, that’s the reason some people refuse to work with them.
As to my distance estimate on an early spring hike that found me in close proximity to a bull elk (uncomfortably close) we looked at each other and I slowly raised my 400mm lens which filled the vertical frame from ears to throat. And I’ve never really done anything with it other than showed it a few times. It gets that wow factor period and that it.
I find it hard to rate these on fstoppers, because the fstopper image quality presented is so low. I'm sure the real photo is impressive. To speak a little to Paul's point, maybe: The depth of field is low enough that you can't see much of the snowy cool background. But that's stuff that I'm still learning to do too.. If I have to, I shoot different focus points, and combine them later. But usually just raise the f-stop to get more of the land and you might have to raise the iso. Now with technology you can even do that after the deer has run away.
Hey Robert
I know what you mean about the image quality seen here. When I rate photos here, I rate them on composition, light, how compelling the content is, but not in fine image quality. Personally, I limit the resolution I post at here, because of the image theft that is rampant over the internet. I don't want to post something at full resolution here, only to see it being used commercially without my permission ..... that already happens way too often, even when I post at lower resolution. I figure that the lower resolution that I use here will at least curtail some of the would-be image theft. "You can't stop it ..... you can only hope to contain it".
I'm sure the shallow depth of field is intentional. It's one method by which the photographer can use contrast to separate the subject from the background. If the background were sharply focused, the buck would not stand out in the picture nearly so well. The viewer knows those are snowy woods in the background, and the details are better left to the imagination so as to not be a distraction from the subject. There's no one best or right way to use depth of field, but I suspect most wildlife and portrait photographers use it to isolate their subject from a busy background more often than not. It simplifies the picture. Good work, Tom.
Tom, you don't need to limit resolution on Fstoppers, they do that for you. You can upload the maximum 19.99mb file with a huge res jpeg, and still you'll find the posted image is only a certain shadow of your original image.
Tom, congratulations on Photo of the Day ;)
Thanks Paul! I only posted it because of you commenting on the other one, so it is literally thanks to you .... lol
Tom, My thoughts too plus …
The only thing to make it more bizarre is it happened of May fourth …
05 4th be/U ;)
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