golden-mantled ground squirrel, Lassen Volcanic N.P., September 1998, Praktica MTL3, Prakticar 28-200/4 at 200, 1/250s, f5.6, Fuji Super 200, scanned from a print. One of my attempts in wildlife photography. I need to know if I go the right way.

-- Zdenek Bakstein (zb@zzz.cz), December 30, 1998

Answers

Zdenek,

Looks to be seriously out of focus (caveat: may be a poor scan), although the ground under the animal's feet is sharper behind the animal than in front - you may have focussed somewhere back of the eye.

The lighting is nice, with plenty of light on the front of the animal, despite a main light from the left rear, and a catchlight.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), December 30, 1998.

Frank,
thank you for your comment. I tried to scan the image again, but my scanner couldn't do anything better. As I posted the image, I was mainly interested in comments about light, composition and the animal's pose.
Zdenek

-- Zdenek Bakstein (zb@zzz.cz), December 30, 1998.

Zdenek, It does seem just a bit out of focus. I do like the animal's pose, turning and looking back at you. Also has a nice rim light that separates it from the dark green.

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.com), December 30, 1998.