African plains--Antelope and peacock

[dmartinc]

Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture f/16.0
Focal Length 200 mm
ISO Speed 1000
Exposure Bias -2/3 EV

I was happy to get these two in the same shot. This is from the Bronx Zoo. I tried to follow the rule of thirds and also achieve a unified composition -- the grass and the antelope forming one 'half moon'. Any comments would be appreciated.

[AndrewPDX]

Cool that you got both of those animals together. the brown and the blue work really well, and those stripes are pretty striking.

As for the composition, don't think of the grass as an element that you need to consider. That's background junk- you really want the viewer to focus on the animals. I'd crop a lot tighter. Keep the same aspect ratio, just clip out some of the foreground grass and the clumps of grass to the right. With zoo animals, I try to highlight the animal and minimize the location, as it's usually pretty obvious that they're in a zoo. Here's one of my shots that is a tight crop and generally follows the rule-o-thirds (not quite, but close).



I've got a bunch of zoo pics, and the ones that work are generally the ones where the animal filled the frame.