Kissing Seals

[Mike Poole]

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Took a trip over to Donna Nook on the East coast of England, where every year the grey seals come to have their pups. It's a great spectacle with countless seals all together, but unfortunately for us photographers, irresponsible behaviour over the years means you need to stay in a fenced off viewing area rather than get down and dirty at eye level on the beach. I still managed to take far too many frames though!

This is a mother sharing a moment with her new pup, which according to the wardens is less than a week old. They are very confident on coming right up to the fence line but when two mothers had a fight right up against the fence it showed why the barriers are there - serious teeth!

Ideally I would have preferred a little more room below, but this is the bottom of the frame with a little cropped off from the other 3 sides.

Canon 5d3
500mm f4is
ISO 3200
1/1000th f7.1

Mike

[Mike Poole]

Also tried another version with a little more sharpening around the faces - I don't usually shoot at such a high ISO (although I probably should) so I'm interested on your views as it's a bit of a test PP wise for me, thanks


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[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Mike ..... somebody else other than me went to Donna :eek3: , good !!!
Have you been on a weekend or in the week , i hope you went not on a weekend .
Yes it is sad that we have to stay behind fence , but if that helps the seals to raise their pups it is ok .

Well you shot a typical mother/ pup bondage behavior . Nice low POV specially having that fence in mind , so you did well .Like the framing but can also see a bit tighter version , getting rid of mums back .
Overall i think the image is a bit thin in tones and bit light overall , the red channel is blown in the HL , visible also in the image resulting in fancy color in the real HL in the pup . Keep that in mind while processing :w3.
One might think it is a wee bit too much on the yellow side .... having been there i might go for a cooler look&feel as it seems the sun was not out . But as colors are subjective you might want to stay with this WB ,

Sharpening is ok for me in OP and RP is ok too , but i prefer the OP sharpness .

Nice job Mike , TFS Andreas

[Mike Poole]

Hi Mike ..... somebody else other than me went to Donna :eek3: , good !!!
Have you been on a weekend or in the week , i hope you went not on a weekend .
Yes it is sad that we have to stay behind fence , but if that helps the seals to raise their pups it is ok .

Well you shot a typical mother/ pup bondage behavior . Nice low POV specially having that fence in mind , so you did well .Like the framing but can also see a bit tighter version , getting rid of mums back .
Overall i think the image is a bit thin in tones and bit light overall , the red channel is blown in the HL , visible also in the image resulting in fancy color in the real HL in the pup . Keep that in mind while processing :w3.
One might think it is a wee bit too much on the yellow side .... having been there i might go for a cooler look&feel as it seems the sun was not out . But as colors are subjective you might want to stay with this WB ,

Sharpening is ok for me in OP and RP is ok too , but i prefer the OP sharpness .

Nice job Mike , TFS Andreas

Thanks for taking a look Andreas, appreciated as always.

I don't work in the channels part of PS - I've not got my head around it yet, so not sure how to rectify what you mention. Believe it or not, we did have a bit of sun break through the other day, so the WB is pretty close to being how it was on the day, but I just took another look and lowered the yellows a bit and it is better.

If I can dig out your email address would you mind having a look at it for me please - always interested in what others can do to make an improvement.

regards

Mike

[Andreas Liedmann]

Will fire my email and will have a look if you send me file ...... with pleasure .

As for the channels ...... just look at your histogram there is a large peak at the RHS of the red channel .
Or just look at the red channel itself and see that there is no detail in the HL .

Cheers Andreas

[Andreas Liedmann]

Mike just for info and illustration the channels to view . first is after channel blending with the blue channel copied into the red in luminosity blend mode to avoid strong color shifts .
i also added a version with toned down red channel ..... multiplied the blue channel ( the HL ) into the red channel for more detail ... not ideal on the low res file though .
I hope you get what i am talking about .

Cheers Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Mike - really nice moment between the two. Looks like Andreas is getting you sorted on the channels and tones.

TFS,
Rachel

[Mike Poole]

Andreas,

Thanks for that. I can see a difference in the highlights in your RP, but to be honest the technical explanation doesn't make any sense to me. Obviously I can see the clipping in the red channel, but copying and blending the channels is way over my head!

I'll get to work on some video tutorials when I'm on my next day off work, thanks for taking a look, I'll fire the RAW over you tomorrow if you don't mind - off on a night shift in a moment

Mike

[Andreas Liedmann]

Mike if channel blending is "way over your head " :wave: you can avoid that by watching the histogram already in the raw conversion and avoid that one of the channels becomes clipped .Most of the times the red channel is the one that tends to clip first .....
Andreas

[keith mitchell]

Hi Mike, interesting to read the tec bits which I also try to get my head around. You have captured a touching moment very nicely,great detail and sharpness.

Must see if I can manage a trip down there.
Keith.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Mike -- I like the tender moment and prefer your OP as far as sharpening is concerned , lovely low POV but a bit yellowish for my liking but all this is very subjective . TFS !

I think Andreas if you start a post on channels and explain it step by step then it will be a great help for people like mike and me . Really it goes over my head as of now but i am very interested in learning that side of PP .

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Mike

Very tender moment well captured here!
Agree with tighter crop.
The sharpness fall-off to the chest of the pup in RP to drastic- prefer OP!

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Sweet moment captured here with lovely details. Thanks for sharing.