Does this shot work for me; no?
The deer up front is out of focus white the one in the back is sharp. While you can generally get away with a background object being out of focus, the foreground one usually needs to be sharp. It's too bad, as these two seem to have posed quite nicely for you.
Unfortunately, I don't know your camera at all. My old Panny superzoom did not allow a lot of adjustments like focus and then recompose...
The way I shoot these type of images probably cannot be duplicated on a superzoom. I focus on the nearest eye and lock focus (I use a technique commonly known as "back button focus", that way I decouple the focus operation from the shutter release operation. Once I lock focus, I recompose and take the shot. I generally use shutter priority mode for this type of work with a single focus point right in the middle of the centre of the viewfinder.
I think it would be better if the nearer deer was in, and the further deer was out of focus, though I like many elements of the shot. You asked what would be the correct camera settings for the shot: did you try to focus on the front deer but it grabbed the one in back? There are two things I might suggest relating to superzooms which I do with mine: 1, as Manfred mentioned, activate only the center focus point, if your camera allows for that, this should only allow the camera to try to focus on whatever is in the center of the frame, ( in this case you would focus on the near deer's head) then while holding the focus, re compose if necessary, and shoot, or 2: another thing I do sometimes with my camera is to set it to macro mode, which essentially sets a focus limiter on the camera, so it will try to focus on something nearer rather than farther in cases where I want it to, which it generally doesn't do when it's zoomed out all the way and is not set on macro mode.
Aw...look at it this way...the farther deer is photobombing the nearer one.
I like it, it sort of shows what has the buck's eye; even if it is not in focus.
If only the closer deer was in focus and vice versa, would of been a great shot.
If I had the time...I would have taken two separate image, one with each deer in focus and
blended them together...if you have the time.
I was having the same idea as Chauncey, but then saw he said it first
Thanks all for the comments and the feedback on this post, it is appreciated.
I did use spot focus on this one to lock focus on the buck and then re framed to capture the doe.
Tried to capture the Buck saying "Don't mess with my lady Jim" .
Some work, some don't.
Thanks again.
Jim
The hard knocks of photography are tools to learn from.Look forward to seeing more.
Aaaahhhh...now we are talking...