the Shrewd

[Nicola]

during a recent walk in a pinewoods I found these guy, a beautiful fox, not intimidated at all.
I shot some pictures, before he stopped to tolerate my presence...
here some crops:
thanks for viewing

Nicola

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Nicola,

Unfortunately on both, the (AF?) focus has gone for the whiskers and end of nose rather than the eyes, but they are still a nice record for yourself and interesting for us.

The wide aperture (f/2.8) has given separation from background, even with only 100mm focal length, but that's obviously not helped with DoF on face. Equally the 1/250s is as slwo as Id' want to go with this subject.

Of course, I could say, "get down to his level", but that could be risky for you

Thanks for sharing,

[Nicola]

Hi Nicola,

Unfortunately on both, the (AF?) focus has gone for the whiskers and end of nose rather than the eyes, but they are still a nice record for yourself and interesting for us.

The wide aperture (f/2.8) has given separation from background, even with only 100mm focal length, but that's obviously not helped with DoF on face. Equally the 1/250s is as slwo as Id' want to go with this subject.

Of course, I could say, "get down to his level", but that could be risky for you

Thanks for sharing,

thanks Dave
I know, the Focus point isn't ok, but, as you can imagine, I tried to change the AF point in order to point always on his face, but it was very hard to point on its eye as its movements were very quick!
and the quite big distance between its nose and eyes didn't help at all! if it was a bulldog perhaps...

anyway, I started shooting at f/7.1 since it appeared from behind a bush and entered a sunny area (below)



the shutter speed at 1/125 helped me on a sort of panning but the motion blurr on its face is barely accettable

then he entered in the shadow, so I tried quickly to compensate this loss of light widening the aperture to f/2.8. sincerely, i didn't imagine he would have come so close to me ( a few meters), so the DoF become so tight as visible in the previous post.
(the DoF depends on aperture and on the distance to the subject, doesn't it?)



Post Scriptum
fortunately, I hadn't a FF camera.. the DoF would have been even tighter!

cheers
Nicola

[Dizzy]

Nicola, I believe that last pic of the Red Fox looking at you is an absolute WINNER! The slight blur to his body and background bokeh focus my eyes right to his well focused face, and although his face could have been just a bit sharper; his posture is superb....awesome image IMO..

FWIW, I often hunt down a herd of Elk, and might shoot 50-100 frames, and while all might be in-focus, there are usually only 4 or 5 (or even just 1) that I would consider as very good; the rest are just pictures of Elk. When Colin does model shoots, he often speaks of taking 1000 frames, or more, and I'm sure out of those he picks only the very best to work with.

See my signature quote for further details...

Mike

[Geoff F]

Yes I agree with Mike, that last photo is good. An excellent expression. Possibly a very slight tweak in brightness and saturation, but not a lot.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Nicola,

Got to agree with Mike and Geoff, that last one is a winning shot

Well done,

[Nicola]

Many thanks Mike!
I appreciate your comment! you make my face a bit red...
I usually spend a lot of time to PP my images, I'm still not so able to identify which images are good, which not... I'm here on CiC to learn also that.

[Nicola]

many thanks to Geoff and Dave!!
below a re-edited version with last your suggestions implemented (LCE on face, saturation and levels)
better?



desaturated after the last Mike's suggestion! (see below)

[Dizzy]

many thanks to Geoff and Dave!!
below a re-edited version with last your suggestions implemented (LCE on face, saturation and levels)
better?

In all honesty Nicola, no, I liked the original much better than the re-processed image. The added red in the 2nd version minimizes the red highlights in the fox. If you can darken the background while leaving the fox alone, that might bring out the "pop" a bit.

Mike

[Nicola]

In all honesty Nicola, no, I liked the original much better than the re-processed image. The added red in the 2nd version minimizes the red highlights in the fox. If you can darken the background while leaving the fox alone, that might bring out the "pop" a bit.

Mike

thanks!!!!!!
one step back... edited in the previous post