Poor Grey Seal youngster

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi folks , i already posted this behavior some years ago with an image or two taken in England at Donna Nook , the same behavior i captured this time during my recent trip to Helgoland , not that bloody though .
This is an adult bull grabbing a youngster born early in the season , my guess is around late nov / early dec as far as my experience goes . This big male is trying to mate with this little female ( my guess) , my explanation for this behavior is the lack of female who are in heat at the time of shooting as most of them are already served by the bulls .
As roughly three weeks after giving birth the females are ready to mate with them .

For the full story who is interested have a look in the sequence forum : Hard life of a Grey Seal youngster ..... born early this winter (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/133247-Hard-life-of-a-Grey-Seal-youngster-born-early-this-winter) even if images are not that great from the pure technical POV as all are very quickly edited and might not be to my " normal " standard .

Canon EOS 1D x
Ef 200-400 IS L with TC engaged ( 560 mmm )
HH lying flat in the sand

F 5,6 ; Iso 16.000 ; 1/1250 sec ; i wished for more DOF but i was already on the limit and did not want to push further .

Processed with DPP 4 and PS CC , slight crop from bottom and LHS for comp , with hindsight i might have gone wider as i think it is bit tight on top . But as i have a fairly large collection with all sorts of in camera crops of this scene , i have just chosen this one due to the image content with that neck bite !!

Thanks for watching and commenting to my previous posting .

Cheers Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andreas, I don't think you were at the limit, but personally I would have opted for more SS rather than DoF. I can live with the flipper on the RHS being cut, but would have liked a sliver more above, a quick fix and easy to do and I feel would make the difference. Nice light from what I can see and again, a cool POV too.

BTW AF, 4 cross or single point?

TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Steve ..... with hindsight i might have been not on the border :w3 but in the heat of the moment .... i felt i was .
To be honest the scene was very special and they were moving a lot and i was struggling to compose and keep the focus point on the heads at least at this crop ... sometimes the head of the bull just disappeared half out the frame and i was shooting and stopping to shoot . When they stopped moving they closed their eyes :e3, pretty much all of those frame due look stupid compared to the ones with the eyes open . But as i sad i have some more ... shot wider .......
Due to this fast up and down / forward and backward i decided to let the camera select the focus in the zone , amateur as i am :S3:. I tried the first tight frames with single , then i swopped to cross ..... finally ending up in the zone with more keepers :w3 . AF Case 2 with hindsight 5 might have been better choice , but also due to the lack of eye sight i sometimes cannot see the back of my cam clearly ..... i am just starting to try contact lenses next week . As i do not want to get caught with this dilemma in a month when staying in ........ secret !!

Yes i can add some canvas ..... thank you for the pointer , Steve.

Cheers Andreas

[haseeb badar]

Hi Andreas -- This is a top class action. Loved the expression on the young female. You did extremely well considering hand holding the lens , the details and colours look very nice and the POV is as usually great . Agree with Steve regarding the canvas , would love to see how it looks after adding one . TFS !!

[Morkel Erasmus]

Fascinating behavioural capture and good light/techs for me Andreas.
Cool POV and intense expressions on both.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andreas - Interesting interaction and behavior. I am ok with the tightness here as the emphasis is on the bite. Your usual nice low pov and details. I am curious from what you describe as some of the challenges why not zoom out a little or disengage the internal 1.4x?

TFS,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Haseeb, Morkel and Rachel for your comments and thoughts , much appreciated .
Haseeb i might get back to it , regarding the added canvas ... if my time allow .

Rachel regarding your thought ... well i could have gone wider , i did but not having the same " action intensity " in those shots . We have to make decisions from time to time , and i could not predict what was going next . So i fired some bursts and stopped , and again fire and stop , changing constantly when possible the focal length . Or i even moved when they moved , crawling in the sand and hoping this big boy will not see me as a competitor . On the other hand if i had gone up ..... i would have chased them away ..... and i did not want that to happen .

Thanks again , Andreas

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Andreas,

very nice action scene in your image. What a behaviour, I would not like that :t3

I do not mind for the closer frame or the clipped flipper.

The lack of eye sight to see the back of the screen. Interesting, I have the same. For landscape I take my glasses out. I have learned the settings on the back of my screen in my head. I at least can see where the thing jumps to when I turn the wheel or push! But with contact lenses, never thought of that.

The camera itself I adjusted the view finder to my eye sight. Is yours already that bad? Get the eyes done. Goes fast.

I had that years ago, was great... after 7 years the reading started slowly to get poor again, but my distance seeing is still the same like after the operation, yeah. I still see polar bears :wave:

Have a great evening

Ciao Anette

[Karl Egressy]

Amazing shot of this behavior that I don't really like but it is what it is. I would like to have seen just a bit more room at the top.