What could I have done differently?

[Ridezlow]

Took this from about 20 feet away. She was behind a fence and I was approx 5 feet from the fense. Is this a job for the Digital Darkroom or could I have done anything differently from behind the lense. This was my first shot of a live subject and at the time, all I had was my camera without and additional lenses.
Thanks

[jbkalla]

Oh, crap. I forgot to ask if it's ok to edit your image!

Is it? If so, you can change the setting under User CP (control panel)

[Radtech1]

Originally Posted by Ridezlow

Is this a job for the Digital Darkroom or could I have done anything differently from behind the lense.

You could have helped yourself very much behind the lens. If it were me taking the shot, I would done a couple things:

1) I almost always shoot manual and RAW. This way multiple shots are always the same technique. If you shoot with an automatic exposure, successive shots will likely have different technique depending on the brightness of the item in front of the light meter.

2) For this shot, I would have selected a tighter aperture. This increases your depth of focus, which would have resulted in the fence being more in focus therefor less "smear" on the image.

3) I would have shot multiple shots from moving slightly up and down and side to side. Just an inch or two either direction would take care of it. These steps would have provided at least some workable material.

4) In photo-shop, I would have copied and pasted all the areas that do NOT have a fence into one shot. For example, in your shot, the fence runs through the area between the snout and mouth. If you had another shot taken from an inch below, that shot would have the fence covering the cat's eyes. You could copy and paste the snout/mouth are from that shot into the one here.

5) Yes, all this assumes the animal stays still. With practice, you can fire of 4+ shots in a quick second or two.

6) I have done this with great results on countless shots that were obscured by fences, posts, wires, and all types of obscuring items.

Rad

[Titus213]

I would probably have moved up closer to the fence and positioned the wire outside the image I really wanted. What is that thing anyway?

[Ridezlow]

Sorry John, it's been changed. Thanks for the advise guys. I'm not sure what it is. It was on the fense but I forgot to use my recording feature to make a note of it? Oops

[jbkalla]

Originally Posted by Ridezlow

Sorry John, it's been changed. Thanks for the advise guys. I'm not sure what it is. It was on the fense but I forgot to use my recording feature to make a note of it? Oops

Yeah. I originally put that post up after an edited pic, but I deleted the edit post, cuz I didn't want to overstep and the edit didn't turn out very well anyway.