Light-mantled Sooty Albatross - the most beautiful of all?

[Ian Wilson]

The Light-mantled Sooty Albatross is considered by many people to be the most beautiful of the albatross species. The tear-drop shaped body, swept back wings, pastel tones, white line on the bill and white eye-ring form a heavenly design. The propensity of pairs to perform close synchronized manoeuvres adds to their endearment. I had the privilege of seeing birds on their carefully constructed mud nests, lined with sea-weed, on the cliffs of Enderby Is. The shot was taken on Campbell Is in the NZ sub-Antarctic on 8 January 2014.
Canon 5DIII + 300 mm f/2.8L II + 2x III extender, hand-held.
Av priority, f/7.1, 1/2000 sec, ISO 800.
Post processing in DPP: crop, DLO, USM, RAW - jpeg. PS Elements: adjust shad/h'lights, sharpen bird, background NR, downsize to output jpeg, USM.

[christopher galeski]

Beautiful bird and image,sharp with nice detail,maybe a tad more room on the right,for the bird to fly into.well done.

[Colin Driscoll]

I agree Ian, a beautiful bird, nicely done. I must get myself that lens combo!

[Miguel Palaviccini]

A very well executed image! Exposure is spot on for me.

Do you have any where the far wing doesn't intersect the head? I know it's got to be tough, since I assume they don't do a lot of flapping.

[Richard Flack]

Beautiful bird and image Ian. If anything and space allowing, I would add a bit of space to the back and front. TFS

[Ian Wilson]

Beautiful bird and image Ian. If anything and space allowing, I would add a bit of space to the back and front. TFS

Thank you Richard, Miquel, Colin and Christopher for your helpful feedback. I do have the space available to extend the canvas a little and I understand where you are coming from. However, I found that giving more space was at the expense of the intimacy that I was trying to preserve. I wanted the strong eye contact which to me feels like the furtive glance of a pretty girl. Miquel, I do have other images, perhaps more to your liking, but unfortunately they do not have the intimate contact captured in this image. Colin, the 300 mm f/2.8L II + extenders is great for travelling where size and weight are an issue. It is feasible to carry this combination on all-day walks in rough country, make river crossings and wet landings with both hands free, and the extenders give you some flexibility in the choice of focal length. BIF with the 2x extender is still possible if you can get onto a bird early and keep 'bumping' the focus as it approaches.
Regards, Ian

[Marina Scarr]

What a great looking species and thank you for the info. I think I would take a tad off of the bottom and add a little canvas on the left.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

This is another image that appears to be missing a little detail? Out of curiosity I'd love to see a small jpeg showing the full frame image. The noise you refer to (background NR) could be due to one of two things.

1) bad underexposure and a 5D3 at ISO800 should have no real visible noise when correct digital exposure (with histogram pushed to the right) is used. Av mode would be creating inconsistent exposures for you as the bird passes different tonalities during its flight path. Hence manual mode would be best to make consistent exposures where you set it for the bird. It also means that if you use Av mode and underexpose then try and push exposure in post process then you will end up with noisier images. Not sure if you are aware of how the histogram works, but I may be able to help with this high ISO tutorial. Although the principle of shooting to the right should work at all ISOs, as you are capturing the BEST available data based on the distribution of data from darkest to lightest tones. Hope it makes sense:

http://www.amatteroflight.com/wordpress/?p=417




2) large crops generally show more noise than less crops

Would have been a beautiful bird to see I reckon. Do we get these on the east coast of Australia? I have a few Wollongong pelagics booked in winter....

[Ian Wilson]

Hi Akos, Thanks for your feedback and advice. The image is from a moderate crop, just enough for grainy noise to be visible. There is no brightness or levels adjustment as the white eye-ring was already near saturation. BTW, if I had adjusted the brightness or levels in processing I would have mentioned this in my post. When shooting seabirds I usually use Av priority with EC as they often appear suddenly from any direction with consequent large changes in illumination. In these conditions I find I am not quick enough to make optimal manual camera settings. I am not sure if you will see this species out of Wollongong - I think you would have a much better chance out of Eagle Hawk Neck.
Regards, Ian