Morning Snack was created this past week at the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge near Spokane-Washington State. I have been there for the whole week on the occasion of the yearly PSA 81st Annual Conference of Photography, on one of the outings. It was a cloudy morning. I used a Nikon D850 with the Nikkor lens 80-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 400 mm and with these settings: ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/160 sec with a 1/3 EC and hand held. There is a 5.5 mile loop where you can drive around. We saw this female moose having a snack on the colorful flowers and berries, got off the car a took a few images. Most of them the mouth was behind the bushes. On this one the head is completely exposed and even have a sticking tongue. The image was corrected for white balance, exposure, texture, cropped and some tree branches above the moose were cloned out to remove the distractions
This round’s discussion is now closed! 6 comments posted
Bruce Benson
Isaac, I have never seen a moose in Washington before so lucky you. I was in Teton NP last week and saw several big bulls, but nothing better than I already have so did not photograph them. There were hundreds of people there so was not very natural. I would like to see some interesting behavior, but this is pretty much what moose do. Bruce Posted: 10/16/2019 20:55:00
Marie Costanza
Isaac, your cropping and cloning are very effective. I especially love that you were able to catch her tongue. She looks so relaxed even with you gazing at her!
Posted: 10/17/2019 08:02:31
Adrian Binney
Isaac, you did well to capture this in a nice colourful area with a clear view of his face and timing the shot with her eating away. Interesting that you were forced to use so much ISO, but I can't detect noise to ruin your image. I like very much the clear coat - well exposed and treated plus removing the branches has helped significantly.
My only question is whether it is possible to tone down more the top background? Posted: 10/18/2019 07:49:54
Dr Isaac Vaisman
Adrian, this is what I was able to accomplish with the graduated filter in ACR Posted: 10/18/2019 15:18:55
Adrian Binney
I definitely prefer this Isaac! More detail visible in top 1/4, whist removing what I saw as a distraction. Posted: 10/21/2019 10:45:20
Issac, wow what a great capture, and hand held at that! The image is sharp, well framed, and timed perfectly to show eating without the mouth open and weeds hanging out which is what I usually get. The only change I might make is to burn the upper background some to give more highlight to the moose. Well done. Posted: 10/20/2019 10:55:32
