Ian Wilson
06-09-2014, 02:21 AM
These two handsome fellows have just come ashore and are making short trumpet calls to let all the unattached girls know they have arrived at the party. The Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds describes the advertisement pose better than me: 'head lifted, bill nearly vertical, neck fully extended, eyes half closed, flippers held at a small angle from body, back slightly concave, and tarso-metatarsi raised from ground'. I love the last bit - it looks like they are wearing rubber boots. Frames I shot just one minute later show a young female on the scene looking these two up and down.
There was so much going on in the background of this image it looked like a van Brueghel oil painting - it was very busy but without the old master's skilled composition. I found that if I cropped in from the sides it focused more attention on the main subjects. The exact crop was determined by my desire not to cut any birds in the near background. This has resulted in a 'squarish' crop but I am open to suggestions on alternatives. I also lowered the brightness of the background and this seemed to help. The capture was made at Sandy Bay beach, Macquarie Is, Australian sub-Antarctic on 5 January 2014.
Canon 5DIII + 300 mm f/2.8L II + 2x III extender, 600EX-RT with Better Beamer, Gitzo 3532LS, Kirkphoto King Cobra gimbal.
Manual, f/9, 1/200 sec, ISO 100, 1/8 flash power.
Processed in DPP: adjust WB, brightness, shad/h'lights, saturation, sharpen, RAW-TIFF. PS Elements: select birds, background NR to reduce file size, reduce brightness of background, rotate a little, crop, downsize, output sharpen.
Thanks for looking, critical feedback welcome.
There was so much going on in the background of this image it looked like a van Brueghel oil painting - it was very busy but without the old master's skilled composition. I found that if I cropped in from the sides it focused more attention on the main subjects. The exact crop was determined by my desire not to cut any birds in the near background. This has resulted in a 'squarish' crop but I am open to suggestions on alternatives. I also lowered the brightness of the background and this seemed to help. The capture was made at Sandy Bay beach, Macquarie Is, Australian sub-Antarctic on 5 January 2014.
Canon 5DIII + 300 mm f/2.8L II + 2x III extender, 600EX-RT with Better Beamer, Gitzo 3532LS, Kirkphoto King Cobra gimbal.
Manual, f/9, 1/200 sec, ISO 100, 1/8 flash power.
Processed in DPP: adjust WB, brightness, shad/h'lights, saturation, sharpen, RAW-TIFF. PS Elements: select birds, background NR to reduce file size, reduce brightness of background, rotate a little, crop, downsize, output sharpen.
Thanks for looking, critical feedback welcome.